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Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Maldives

Aggressor Fleet: "Good trip to Maldive, crew needs some work", Aug, 2018,

by jeffery moore, AZ, US (Reviewer Reviewer 3 reports with 2 Helpful votes). Report 10392 has 2 Helpful votes.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 5 stars Food 5 stars
Service and Attitude 4 stars Environmental Sensitivity 5 stars
Dive Operation 3 stars Shore Diving N/A
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ 4 stars
Beginners 3 stars
Advanced 3 stars
Comments

This was the 1st cruise of the Maldive Aggressor II with a new cruise director and assistance cruise director after the boat finished a wet dock refit.

The boat is great, a huge upgrade from the other boats in the Aggressor fleet I been on (Rock Island) T&C4, GC4, and Kona). There are no bunk beds so no climbing into the top bunk or worries about who get the top bunk vs bottom. Lots of room in the rooms, large showers and toilet area. The shower and Toilets are separate from each other. Each room has it own A.C. Setting and while it blow cold, a small fan in the room to move air around would be great. The bed are good size, but the mattress may be a bit hard for some folks, only one pillow per bed, with a heavy sheet. The beds could of used a light sheet as the 1st few days I sleep a bit warm. But the room was very quite, and easy to get to sleep fast.

The food was great, with more then enough for me to fill full. The stuff had fresh ice cold drink ready for you as you sat down. No complaints here at all

As for the dives, they are all done from a tender. Which requires crossing to the front of the tender going up the ladder to the tender roof, then down another ladder. Each trip general meant you went up or down 6 set of stairs. The tender was no tight as we only had 11 total divers on the trip vs 18, with a total of 3 to 4 DM per dive. Diver split between the groups. With each group kind of doing there own thing. It was mostly light drift diving.

The coral near the resorts was dead and destroyed Which lead to lots of eels but not many good coral to look at. The undersea mount away from the resorts had better coral, more fish and better chance of seeing eagle rays, sharks, schools of fish and such. One such dive allowed me to get within 3 meters of two eagle rays as the floated in the current above a tila.

The Whale shark encounter was poor from a snorkel POV, Basically 5 to 7 resort boat full of tourist with snorkel and mask chasing the whale shark , I think there was close to 40 or 50 people floating over the whale shark. Very easy to be split up and lots of boat traffic in the area. We got back on board, got on our scuba gear and managed a drop in front of the whale shark. Managed to swim roughly 10 minutes with him before he just pulled away. We surfaced and re dropped again. Each dive with a whale shark maybe lasted 10 minutes in length before it just out swam us.

Shark where seen but really, we never managed to be lead to a good hook in dive that would allow for it. Sea turtle where few and fair between, think I only say maybe 4 or 5 on the trip.

The Manta cleaning station was great, with sever close encounters with the Mantas. It was a blast till the resort boats with their divers came in, These new diver where often all over the place grabbing the coral to stay still vs hitting the sand.

The was a very nice Nurse shark night dive where we had maybe 20 plus nurse sharks all around us, and was bumped into a few times. It was fun watching the feed, but with the current a little extra weight would have been nice.

We only did 18 dives total and only 2 night dives. General it was 3 dives a day. With most dive hitting 70 plus feet in depth. In fact the last two dives of the trip where the deepest dives at 93 feet and 96 feet. Thankfully I had about 28 hours surface interval before my flight after the last dive.

The dive master while good seem to only be looking for sharks, manta, and eagle rays. Caught a nice octopus that they went clear over and didn't stop to let folks check out. Some of the choices by the dive master also seem unwise such as being at 60 feet for 20 minutes in strong current then taking the group across the channel and down to 90 feet to look for sharks in a good current and maybe 50 foot vis. We burned a lot of air and saw very little, and fished surfacing in the blue.

The land tour and dinner on the main island of Male was nice at the end, even if rushed a bit. The guide took use to one tourist shop. While nice this shop sold Sea Turtle jewelry and protected coral necklaces along with Elephant Ivory statues. So divers should be careful of what they are buying as the nice bracelet or hair brush and turn costly if caught in the U.S. With it being sea Turtle.

The crew washed and cleaned all our gear after the last dive of the trip. While the divers could clean their own gear if the wanted to.

I will think about traveling on the Maldive aggressor II again, but will look at doing the deep south trip to get away from the other resort day boats. As there is a lot of live-aboard and day boats in the area. The Maldives need to do a better jobs at saving the coral as all the construction at the small island resorts are killing the coral.

The boat crew just need more experience and it be a really nice trip, The boat was great, The reef and fish need more protection and maybe limits on dive boats
Websites Aggressor Fleet   

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 101-250 dives
Where else diving Kona, Palau, Cayman island, T&C, Spain, Florida
Closest Airport Male Getting There from west cost US 22 hours flight total travel 30+

Dive Conditions

Weather rainy Seas calm
Water Temp 78-81°F / 26-27°C Wetsuit Thickness 3
Water Visibility 30-50 Ft/ 9-15 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile ?
Enforced diving restrictions max dept 33 meters 100 feet
Liveaboard? yes Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks 1 or 2 Mantas 1 or 2
Dolphins None Whale Sharks 1 or 2
Turtles 1 or 2 Whales None
Corals 2 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 2 stars Large Fish 2 stars
Large Pelagics 3 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 1 stars Boat Facilities 3 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 3 stars Shore Facilities N/A
UW Photo Comments Divemaster had little exp with UWP it sem
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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