Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Turks and Caicos

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Aggressor Fleet: "Up close and personal with nurse sharks in the Turks and Caicos", Sep, 2024, by Denis Collins, NY, US ( Reviewer 4 reports with 5 Helpful votes). Report 13107.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	In August the Aggressor live-aboard company gave me a discount that was available on a number of their boats. I used it the last week of August on the Turks and Caicos Aggressor II. I had a great time. Getting there was easy. There are a lot of flights, especially from New York where I live. Aggressor arranges for a cab to take you on the short trip from the airport to the boat. To my great surprise, out of 18 possible guests, there were only three of us. I wasn’t quite sure why, as the staff said they had a number of people booked for the following week. Anyway, we most certainly had personalized service. In addition to 7 staff that were part of the boat, there were two additional Aggressor employees. One was the Aggressor operations manager, a nice fellow named Jay. The other was Rob, a dive pro on the BVI Aggressor, who was on a week’s vacation. The two other guests besides myself were a very nice couple from Georgia. Not having many people on the boat meant that I could get my own room. Quarters on a boat are always a bit tight so this was definitely an added bonus. We had a few firsts that week on the boat. The captain for the week was Jason Flowers and the assistant captain was Jim Clark. This was actually Flowers first week as full captain. Jim used to be the captain, but he was moving to a larger boat in the Aggressor fleet. He stayed on the Turks boat to transition to Flowers. It was also the first week for the chef, a guy from Mexico named Eric. This can always be a bit worrying, as there was no other place to go for food if it turned out that Eric was having a tough time of it. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. The food was very good throughout the week, and Eric was a great guy. The boat seemed to be in very good condition and all the staff on it were excellent. Very knowledgeable and helpful. The only issue I had was a leak in several tanks due to O-ring or valve problems. The issues were sorted out right away. The diving was very good. I’ve dove the Turks and Caicos at least four or five times before so I’m quite familiar with the conditions. I would say that visibility was not as good as normal with normal being around 70 or 80 feet, sometimes less or more. At times during this week we had 40 or 50 foot visibility, with sometimes being better. Even though Turks hadn’t been hit directly by the recent hurricanes, there was a lot of sand that had been moved around on the bottom, so I would imagine they had increased surge which affected visibility. The fish life we saw during the week was pretty good. You had the usual type of Caribbean fish. Some notables were short nose batfish, several larger spider crabs hiding in some rocks, garden eels, and gobies poking their heads out of the sand, a peacock flounder, flying Gunard and lots of nurse sharks and reef sharks during the day and at night. On one of the dives, we even saw some dolphins maybe 20 feet below us for a minute or so. That was a first for a number of people. The highlight of the week, though, were the night dives. Due to good weather, we were able to get to French Cay. During the night dives there, they were about 20 or more nurse sharks and some reef shocks who were feeding. Some of them were quite big, maybe 9 or 10 feet. The nurse sharks would push their heads under coral trying to get at fish. They would suck the sand in through their mouth and pump it out their gills to get closer to the fish. If they happened to get one, it was, of course, a free-for-all as to who would eat it. While we were watching all of the sharks, Jim, the assistant captain for the boat, laid down motionless on the sand, similar to what some sharks were doing. Several nurse shocks swam over and went nose to nose with him. It was really interesting. Jim, it turned out, was also a marine biologist (in addition to being a boat captain and dive pro). He theorized later that perhaps the nurse sharks were doing that with him because they saw other sharks going nose to nose with each other. Anyway, it was quite interesting. On one night dive there was this 3 or 4 foot barracuda who hung out only a few inches from the dive ladder. if you looked at it, as all of us did, it seemed like it was waiting for the next diver to come up the ladder so to get a quick bite for dinner. Since barracudas are quite shy, at least in my experience, that most certainly was not the case. We were thinking that perhaps the barracuda was using the back of the boat as camouflage so it could wait for some unsuspecting fish to come close and eat it. It was a great way to end the dive. All in all, another good week of diving.
Websites	Aggressor Fleet
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	101-250 dives
Where else diving	all over the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, Galapagos, Red Sea and Indonesia.
Closest Airport	PLS	Getting There	there are alot of flights there.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas
Water Temp	84-86°F / 29-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	40-80 Ft/ 12-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in Turks and Caicos

Aggressor Fleet: "Up close and personal with nurse sharks in the Turks and Caicos", Sep, 2024,

Photos Submitted with this Report

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

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

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

Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Turks and Caicos