Panama, Palau, Belize, Philippines

Dive trips are always filled with unusual and unexpected moments, mostly welcome, but some annoying or disheartening. By filing reader reports, our readers provide excellent information to aid others in planning dive trips. I always find some tidbits I think might interest just about any diver, even if not planning a trip, so here are a few I've selected this month.

Panama's Coiba National Park doesn't get much attention from American divers - maybe because it's on the Pacific side. Our reviewers and reader reports over the years have given it high marks. In December, Richard P. Tucker (Sacramento, CA) had nothing but good things to say: "The Ark Divers is an off-the-grid micro-eco resort a hillside above Pixvae, close to the national park. It's fantastic. Guests stay in one of three modern solar-powered cabanas with panoramic views of the Contreras Islands. The spacious rooms have quality linens, a private bath, and daily service. There were only five guests total while we were there. The vocalizations of howler monkeys in the nearby jungle greeted us at sunrise each morning. In the lodge, co-owner Audrey served phenomenal breakfasts and dinners featuring locally sourced fruits, vegetables, seafood, and meat . . . The first dive was typically 65-70 feet for 50-55 minutes, followed by a surface interval on a nearby beach where we had snacks prepared by Audrey. The second dive had a similar profile, followed by a wonderful lunch on a different little palm-lined beach. The third dive was often a little shallower. Water was a comfortable 81°-84°F. I saw sharks and turtles almost every dive, and eels (big green morays, starry morays, jewel morays, and tiger snake eels) were plentiful. I saw a hefty bull shark and lazy white tips hung around almost every corner. Fish life was abundant, and the corals were healthy. The dives reminded us of Hawaii since big volcanic rocks were prominently featured. The seas were filled with schools of jacks and barracudas. An unforgettable week!" www.thearkdivers.com

Side-mount diving is gaining interest among serious divers, which we noted in our article in the October 2023 issue. Paul Barrett (Tucson, AZ), who took a short class in the States, enrolled for four days of more advanced training in December, south of Cancun, where side-mounts are more popular and instructors better trained.

"Under The Jungle focuses on side-mount for cave diving. Before I arrived, I told them I wanted to improve my side-mount skills for recreational diving. The training was one-on-one, and we started daily with classroom practice. Then we headed to the cenote. Lily, my instructor, was great! They have precise ways of doing things, and for good reasons. Even how a clip is held and attached to a D-ring was drilled into me for safety, so it got in my muscle memory. They had to redo my wing and harness adjustment and add a few clips and other things here and there. We spent the four days putting on and taking off the tanks in the water, dropping a tank and swimming with one, switching regulators, sharing air, and particularly learning how to distribute my weight. (I was wearing a full 7mm wetsuit with close to 20 pounds of lead.) A great place to learn side-mount diving with fantastic instructors." www.underthejungle.com/en

The Singapore-based Black Pearl liveaboard, a luxury yacht converted into a dive boat, dives Palau, and John Morgan (Surprise, AZ) boarded in January. "The cabins were spacious, and the dining area reminded me of a fancy restaurant, but there was no dive deck, and the camera table was a tiny bar area with three fixed stools. I would have been in trouble had there been another large camera system . . . Used toilet paper had to be thrown into a trash can. This made for some very smelly bathrooms, especially since there were no fans . . . Our biggest surprise was an exploding engine. Twelve of us were on skiff #1 when the driver started the outboard and it exploded. The motor cover wound up 30 feet away in the water, and the motor itself reminded me of an out-of-control BBQ. It sounded like a bomb had gone off. We all got off that skiff real fast! Luckily, we were still tied to the main boat; otherwise, we would have jumped into the water. By some miracle, no one was hurt . . . The diving was nothing less than spectacular. Blue Corner had huge schools of fish, an eagle ray, and many white-tip and grey reef sharks. I even saw a zebra Shark just outside of Blue Cavern. Other highlights included manta cleaning stations, a leaf scorpionfish on our sole night dive, and a cuttlefish at the German Channel. We also had turtles almost every dive. On the last night, I was hunting for Mandarin fish with my 100 mm macro lens. After 30 fruitless minutes, the divemaster pointed out multiple Mandarin fish in the corals - a great end to the trip. The crew and food were great. The guests were about two-thirds Asian, so you'd better be a fan of noodles. There was some Western food, but not much." www.pearlfleet.org/black-pearl

Little resorts on Belize's outer cays - Itza, Blackbirds, et al., offer isolation and healthy reefs, though it seems that serious divers should no longer consider Ambergris Caye. Don Q. Cryer (Payson, AZ), there in January, says, "I stayed and dived with Ramon's 15 years ago, and the operation and diving were great. But no more. The diving sites were the most boring reefs I have seen in my diving life. Colorless, few colorful tropical fish, and all sites looked the same, even Turneffe North (don't bother - certainly not worth the upcharge!). I did see plenty of nurse sharks and a loggerhead turtle, but on many dives, the highlight was finding lionfish for the DM to spear and feed to sharks or morays. We all had to come up together on what I consider short dives. (Sometimes, I came up with half a tank of air!) The DM, who seemed disinterested, did not separate experienced divers from newbies and did little to find things." Many Ambergris operators offer weekly all-day trips to much better diving, but most stick to close to the over-developed Ambergris Caye. www.ramons.com

Last year, we covered the MV Infiniti, which traveled to Tubbataha Reserve in the Philippines, and this year we'll review another. The Philippines Aggressor II has a different itinerary, so we'll share a few thoughts from Deedra R. Mansfield (Morrison, CO), who was aboard in December. "I can't say enough good things about the amazing crew and chef, but the diving was a mixed bag. We had two dives with the thresher sharks that made many close passes. Our guide had a sixth sense and was able to find frogfish on nearly every site. We saw cuttlefish, lots of turtles, nudis, dragon sea moths, banded sea snakes (many), squid, bamboo sharks, and seahorses . . . We did too much cruising and not enough diving; only four dives were scheduled daily (three day-dives and one night-dive), but many night dives were omitted to cruise to the next location. Many sites contained vibrant, healthy soft and hard corals, but several were disappointing - covered in sand with mucky bad vis. The Aggressors I and II ran identical itineraries, with the same dive sites and timing, leading to crowded dive sites. To make things worse, many sites were at or near resort towns. The whale shark encounter at Oslob was our worst dive, with what seemed like 20 million snorkelers at the surface. It was like a petting zoo. The whale shark feeding is staged and unnatural. Knowing its clientele, the Aggressor should not take divers to this whale shark circus. Big thumbs down . . . The mattresses! Hard as rocks (I'm not exaggerating). It was like sleeping on a piece of plywood with a sheet on top. I will visit the Philippines again, but not on the Aggressor II." www.aggressor.com

One of our undercover travel writers wrote to say "I just received an email that Aggressor Fleet is deploying a new Bahamas boat, which is clearly the BVI boat. Given how crummy the original Bahamas boat is, this will be a lot more comfortable."

We have frequently written about dangerous boat captains starting their boats with divers still in the water. Mark Magres (Los Angeles, CA) wants to alert divers with his experience at the Reggae Dive Center in the Philippines. "They often tied up to the lone buoy by tying to another boat in the chain often making of as many as four. This sometimes led to a 50- to 75-yard surface swim to the downline . . . But something more bothered me: with divers in the water boats starting motors to move around. On one dive, our captain started the engine with divers next to us and on the ladder and started moving forward as the boat we were tied to was leaving. One diver tried to straddle an outrigger to hang on. People in the water with moving boats (and I don't mean just one or two boats) and turning props seem to be the norm.

"This situation was worse at a 'dive' called Barracuda Lake. No barracuda, BTW. Imagine 8-10 large boats, mostly with snorkelers, trying to get to the entry point for the lake, 21 steps up and 21 down, on rickety wooden steps made 'safe' with nailed-on bits of old tires. All this to get to a lake whose only feature was a 102°F thermocline. You share with literally dozens of snorkelers. The dive is a joke, and the stairs are no joke in full gear." www.reggaedivecenter.com.ph

Undercurrent member John Miller (Lubbock, TX), who has made 6100 dives, is not only an instructor trainer and a Coast Guard licensed captain but also owns the Texas Dive Center, so he knows what he is talking about. In December, he took his fourth trip on the Turks and Caicos Explorer II.

"I was accustomed to getting a safety briefing, but what we got on this cruise was terribly lacking, considering all the liveaboard accidents experienced this year. We were told life vests were upstairs in some cabinet but never shown them, or had a fire drill. They have moved the charging station from the dive deck to the lounge to avoid salt spray - that seemed logical, but the two locations were fire hazard areas, in my opinion, as they were often overloaded with diver use.

"I was so shocked at the badly corroded tank valves on half of the cylinders . . . Have you ever been on a liveaboard for a week and never had your cabin towels or linens replaced? . . . How often do we need to come up from a dive, and no one is on the dive deck to assist? . . . After a BBQ dinner one evening with rain and moderately rough seas, I was out on the lounge deck later and found the BBQ grill rolling around on the deck and almost ready to descend the ladder down to the dive deck - it had not been secured . . . I noticed outside lights with no covers, exposing the electricals to the weather. The Explorer Corporation needs to give the boat some attention." https://tinyurl.com/38mwt4vv