Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Turks and Caicos

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Aggressor Fleet: "Little dive site variety, dive ops could be tightened", Jan, 2022, by Nancy Boore, MD, US ( Sr. Reviewer 8 reports with 10 Helpful votes). Report 11847 has 2 Helpful votes.
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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	THE GOOD: - True to form with my experience on Aggressors thus far, the food was absolutely phenomenal! Chef Oli created absolute masterpieces for everyone, and did a truly fantastic job accommodating people with varied food requirements. - The crew were all very helpful and friendly, and did their best to take excellent care if us. Jay, one of the crewmembers, was absolutely the best with helping me get some groceries during my COVID quarantine (more on this toward the end of the report), and on his week off at that! I really appreciated his help, don't know what I would have done without him! - Javier was the crewmember who took pictures and video during our dives, and his video was excellent! - Dive briefings were thorough and adequate. - Nice, big dive lockers to hold your gear. - One passenger did get bent about halfway through the trip, and the crew did a great job at immediately putting him on oxygen, getting him off the boat, and getting him to the chamber, and then getting him back on the boat when he was cleared. This was an experienced diver, didn't do anything crazy, but unfortunately got bent. - One passenger's luggage got lost in transit and the Aggressor staff did a great job at getting it to the boat for her. - Th best dive of the trip was the G-Spot night dive, it was a "natural" shark feed, no chumming. Several other great dive sites: Coral Stairway (lots of turtles on this one), Magic Mushroom (lots of sharks on this one, great wall dive), Rock & Roll (lots of fish on this one). THE COULD BE BETTER: - The boat needs some TLC and maintenance. We had a bit of a sporty overnight ride to our first site on Saturday, and in the salon and kitchen doors wouldn't latch or close properly so we had doors coming off of hinges, things coming out of cabinets and flying about, dishes flying about and breaking. During the week my overall impression was that the boat just didn't seem to be in the best state of repair, not consistent with what I've found on other Aggressors. - The dive ops could use some tightening up. On the dive platform divers would find up, and it could be a bit of a cluster, with multiple divers at times all trying to get their fins on, no traffic control from the crew. On the Roatan Aggressor the crew would grab your fins for you and put them on you, then let you jump in, which made for a very fast and efficient operation. They would also "de-fin" you on exit by having you hold on to the ladder, they would take your fins off and hand them up for you while you climbed up the ladder. Another thing that surprised me on this trip was when you got back on the boat after a dive you walked back to your spot on your own, no crew to escort you back. Seas were generally calm, but for safety purposes it would have been prudent to have a crew member making sure you made it back okay. It's usually standard procedure on dive boats, not sure why it wasn't on this one. - We did a lot of double and triple dips on this trip, sometimes only hitting two different dive sites in one day. I imagine there were a lot of great sites we didn't get to see...might have been due to weather, but that was never mentioned. If a dive site was absolutely phenomenal I can understand doing a triple dip, and usually all the divers ask to do the site again, but that wasn't the case on this trip. The captain just decided to stay put, no explanation. -This didn't really apply to me, but it did to some of the other guests, one of them my cabin mate. She was not nitrox certified and did not choose to take the course when booking the trip. When she got on board she and others were told they had to take the course, and so what else could she do but agree to it. No instruction was provided the whole week other than being taught how to use an analyzer and set dive computers. My cabin mate wasn't too happy about being charged for a course and feeling like she got nothing for it, and bought it up to the Captain. He handled it by holding the class for those who had to take it on Friday when we were back at the dock, after all the diving was done. So, they were essentially diving nitrox without having been properly instructed on it. - And...then there's COVID. On Friday three of us tested positive for COVID, myself included. We all had negative tests prior to the trip but weren't tested when we got on board, or at any time during the trip. Our temperatures were only taken once, when we first got on board. On the Roatan Aggressor it was taken every morning, and the crew would hunt you down to make sure they got it. In retrospect, because 3 of us came up positive (all asymptomatic), all passengers and crew should have been required to mask up and social distance on board to try and reduce or prevent further transmission and exposure. But, those that tested negative were allowed to go into town to shop, and later to have dinner. The standard Aggressor Friday night cocktail party still took place. I have since found out that after arriving home some of the previously negative passengers got tested after starting to feel bad (cough, aches, fatigue) and are now positive. The three of us who tested positive had to leave the boat and secure other accommodations. Captain Jonathan provided recommendations, and I was able to get something close to the airport. The crew graciously put together a care package for each of us of whatever we wanted from the boat, and their taxi driver drove us to where we needed to go. On Saturday I received an email from Larry Speaker, Aggressor's VP of Operations, who said that the Aggressor Land Agent on T&C, Chloe Zimmerman, would "be available to assist you as much as possible, and will check in to see how you are doing." I had received her contact information from Captain Jonathan, and Larry provided it as well. I very much wanted to speak with her to understand how the quarantine process in T&C goes, and what I needed to do to get back home. Early on Saturday morning around 8:30am I messaged Chloe and got no response. At about 9:15am I called her, it rang and rang, no answer. At about 10am I called her again, got her on the phone, and she asked if she could call me back in 10 minutes because she was in the middle of a crew meeting, I said that was okay. She didn't call back. At about 12:40 I emailed again, and she finally responded by calling me at 12:50. She provided some info on when & where to get tested again and get a quarantine release form. She also gave me their taxi driver's number. Otherwise, she has not been very helpful, and I get the sense that her attitude is "oh well, too bad you're in this mess, you're on your own, hope everything works out." She has not "checked in" at all or initiated any sort of contact, or offered to help beyond providing the previous info. Jay, one of the crewmembers that lives on the island, has very graciously offered to pick up some groceries for me, which I very much appreciate since my care package supplies are running very low. And...he's doing this on his week off...there isn't a charter scheduled for this week. The one good thing about my quarantine is that it has given me the time to write this lengthy report! Overall this has been a disappointing trip, all of this COVID stuff aside. Little dive site variety, a boat that needs some work, diving operations that need some work, and not the best COVID safety procedures. I've been on three Aggressors so far, Kona, then Roatan, and now Turks & Caicos. I would go on the Kona and Roatan Aggressors again, this one not so much.
Websites	Aggressor Fleet
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	101-250 dives
Where else diving	Florida Keys, Pompano, Bahamas, Bimini, Cozumel, Kona, St. Croix, Roatan.
Closest Airport	Providenciales	Getting There	I flew American from BWI to Provo via Charlotte. We were delayed in Charlotte by about 5 hours....I was supposed to land in Provo at 2:30pm, got in much later, didn't get on the boat until about 10pm. Because of the outgoing tide the boat was moved off shore, I and 2 other passengers had to take a "sporty" dinghy ride to the boat. Once onboard the chef had dinner for those who wanted it.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, surge
Water Temp	78-80°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	50-100 Ft/ 15-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Dive within your training and experience, don't go past 100ft, no buddyless diving, all the standard stuff. Also, pay attention to depth...T&C is a lot of wall diving, it's easy to go deep before you notice it.
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	As usual for Aggressors, there was a big camera table with plenty of outlets for charging batteries, and a big freshwater tank for cameras that you would put your camera in after a dive. Crew would retrieve your camera for you from the tank and have it on the camera table before the next dive.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

Subscriber's Comments

By report author: Nancy Boore in MD, US at Jan 17, 2022 20:00 EST

From the author- I forgot to add that at the Rock & Roll site things got very sporty while we were under, and Javier did a fantastic job at getting everyone back on board. He was at the surface controlling each diver's approach to the boat, guiding them to the ladder and making sure they got back up safely.

By report author: Nancy Boore in MD, US at Jan 21, 2022 15:08 EST

From the author - A follow up to my COVID quarantine experience: The initial information from the T&C Aggressor Land Agent given to the three of us who tested positive was that since we were vaccinated, our quarantine would be 5 days. She instructed us to go to the Ministry of Health's free testing site on Tuesday (we tested positive on Friday), and told us that since on Tuesday we would have been quarantined for 5 days. She said we would be tested again, but since we would have satisfied the quarantine requirement we would get a quarantine release order at the hospital and would be able to go home. So....we did as she instructed, and found that her information was, in fact, incorrect. The quarantine was 10 days, starting the day after the positive test (not the day of), and if you were vaccinated and boosted you could take an antigen test on day 5 and every day up until the 10th day. If you were negative you could get the quarantine release, if positive then you had to stay in quarantine until day 10, and could then get a quarantine release.

By report author: Nancy Boore in MD, US at Jan 21, 2022 15:15 EST

(con't) I messaged her about her incorrect info, didn't hear from her until that evening, when she told me that there were also some private clinics providing free tests, two within walking distance of where I was staying. Had I known that, I could have saved about $45 in taxi fares. The next day I went to a private clinic on the list she provided, and it was not free, I was charged $50, and luckily tested negative. I'M HOME!!!

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Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in Turks and Caicos

Aggressor Fleet: "Little dive site variety, dive ops could be tightened", Jan, 2022,

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):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Turks and Caicos