Dive Review of Caribbean Explorer II in
Caribbean (General)/Saba, St. Kitts

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Caribbean Explorer II, Mar, 2011, by Carol D Cox, FL, US ( Sr. Contributor 22 reports with 16 Helpful votes). Report 6006.
No photos available at this time
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	Just finished a week on the Caribbean Explorer II. Our trip left out of St. Maarten, visiting Saba and St. Kitts. We weren’t able to leave on Saturday night as planned due to flight and luggage problems for one passenger. Out of our small group of five divers two had missing luggage—pack your carryon carefully. We missed our first dive on St. Kitts, but that was made up later in the week with an early morning dive at 0600. Our trip was blessed with relatively calm seas and gentle currents, not always the norm for this tour. The wind did make me chilly when wet, but the captain kept us in seas that were easy to manage. Our crew of 6 worked together like a well-oiled machine and you could feel the comraderie. The captain, Ian, kept us well informed on our schedule and conditions. Polly the Purser made it her mission to locate and deliver lost luggage for our two passengers. Jane the Cook, I hate you for putting two pounds on me despite doing 26 dives. She supplied us with delicious home-cooked meals: steak, fried chicken breasts, ribs, shrimp and enough sides to satisfy any diet whether it be low-carb, high-carb, or vegetarian. Robert, our engineer, quietly kept everything running behind the scenes. Then there were our dive guides, Brett and Lynn. Brett had a great sense of humor and was excellent at guiding the dives and pointing out interesting critters. Lynn, was an out-of-air-emergency waiting to happen--I say that fondly because she had such a great eye for spotting unusual creatures for my camera it would be easy for me to lose track of my bottom time while taking photos. I came back with photos of 7 different kinds of shrimp and 5 different sea slugs, along with a few nice photos of an orange sea horse and a squid. We saw the usual damsels and butterflies, along with jacks, hamlets, barracuda, a number of turtles, trunkfish, trumpetfish, coneys, stingrays, wrasse, lizardfish, filefish, crabs, and lots and lots of nurse sharks. The two shore excursions were nice and much needed to help us off-gas some of our O2 loading. They were worked in so we only had to miss one repeat dive on a reef. This was the first trip I’ve ever been on where I had to shorten my dives near the end because my computer was warning me of over-loading on O2. If I did it again, I would switch to Air for some of the shallow dives. The boat had just come out of dry-dock and the crew were still making some finishing touches, but this was all done without impacting the guests. The boat has been in service for years (I did the same boat many years ago as the Sea Dancer in the Turks and Caicos) and isn’t fancy, but everything worked well and there was plenty of hot water. I loved the hot shower on the dive deck, the soapy wet suit water barrel, and the separate mask and camera rinse buckets.
Websites	Caribbean Explorer II
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Florida, North Carolina, Guam, Truk, Palau, Turks & Caicos, Caymans, Honduras, Bahamas, Cozumel, Turkey, Cyprus, Red Sea
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy	Seas	calm, choppy
Water Temp	79-79°F / 26-26°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	40-100 Ft/ 12-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	110 feet on Nitrox, 500 psi at boat, 70 minutes max
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	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Camera table adequate with our small group of 5 photogs, but would be crowded with a full boat. Same for rinse tanks. Separate buckets for masks and cameras a plus. Camera gear only on camera table briefed and enforced.

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Dive Review of Caribbean Explorer II in Caribbean (General)/Saba, St. Kitts

Caribbean Explorer II, Mar, 2011,

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 Caribbean Explorer II in
Caribbean (General)/Saba, St. Kitts