Pseudo-trip-report, Part II.  Comments based on web report given in:

Jim Breakell ([log in to unmask])
Subject: Re: Tahiti Aggressor
Newsgroups: rec.scuba.locations
Date: 2002-12-30 07:39:02 PST

http://www.scubaboard.com/t17854/s.html

> Episode II: Ye Maidene Voyage of the Goode Shippe Tahiti Aggressor

> The next morning at 0730 we flew to Rangiroa. The joys of 18
> people with 500 tons of gear trying to get on a plane that could
> only fly with 100 tons of luggage. Still, we got there in the end.

As well and detailed Jim described various aspects of the vessel
and the Tahiti Aggressor charter, a more comprehensive (and
official) description can be found in

http://www.aggressor.com/tah_home.html

Air Tahiti Nui (for the 1-hr puddle-hopper flight from Pepeete to
Rangiroa) allows only ONE check-in luggage of 20 kg (44 lb) as
noted in the webpage above.  That's not much for DIVERS with gears,
especially photo equipments.

Fortunately, that info is OBSOLETE, as of October 17, for Tahiti
Aggressor divers, and so is the baggage info given in the
Air Tahiti Nui webpage cited:

ONE carry-on of 7.5 kgs (16.5 lbs), and charge $1 per lb overweight.
The rules on the TN webpage was so ambiguously and unclearly written
that I finally called the Aggressor Office (the day before my
departure) to learn that they've negotiated with Air Tahiti Nui to
INCREASE the limits (for Aggressor divers) to 25 kg and 10 kg
respectively.

STILL a very meager load allowed.  But hey, an extra 7.5 kg is
an INCREASE of 27+ precent of FREE allowance.

But I wouldn't have known had I not phoned the Aggressor Office
because I was sent the old spec sheet and received the revised
sheet by fax only after I asked.

Das Boot ...
> If you any of you have been on the Fiji Aggressor then you
> will be familiar with the Tahiti Aggressor, as they are one
> and the same. Except they now have an extra cabin, so she takes
> 18. Well, you?ve gotta make money.
http://www.scuba-safaris.com/old/tahiti/tahitiagg.jpg

Yup.  This 4-decker is correctly photo'd and described by Jim, but
nothing like the Fiji Aggressor pictured on the Aggressor webpage.

> Anyway, she?s a 106ft long, 30ft wide cat with 2100hp jet drives
> on each side. She can do over 20kts, but you would run out of fuel
> before you left the harbour, so they tend to cruise at 11-12kts.
> She has 5 cabins down the port side and 4 on the starboard, all on
> the main deck. Each has a double bed below, single above, in room
> washbasin and an en suite shower room with dunny. All have large
> picture windows except the new cabin which has no windows at all,
> so offers a lovely view of the wall instead.
http://www.scuba-safaris.com/old/tahiti/tahitiaggcabin.jpg

Our beds were exactly as pictured.  Each bunk is about one foot
WIDER than those on the Cayman Aggressor, so the bed below is more
like a Queen size bed, and the bunk above had plenty of space for
us to spread out "stuff" after we stashed two large suitcases at
the back.

> Upstairs is the galley and saloon.

I must say that's the most spacious galley/saloon on either the
Aggressor or the PhD Fleet for 18 pax!  Dining is buffet style, but
the seating comfortably accommodates 40, counting two tables of 4
outside and seats around the bar.  I noticed the seating space
on the first dinner served, when three dining tables were not used
at all, and there were extra unused seats

Pix of dive-deck:

http://www.scuba-safaris.com/old/tahiti/tahitiaggdeck.jpg
http://www.scuba-safaris.com/old/tahiti/tahitiaggtender.jpg

> A dive tender that goes up & down a hydraulic ramp at the back of
> the boat. This is VERY important if you don?t want to get wet, but
> in a chop the tender is a pig to get back into the docking bay.
> Quite frankly it?s bollocks.
http://www.scuba-safaris.com/old/tahiti/tahitiaggstern.jpg

I prefer the setup in Sun Dancer II (PhD, Palau) of using TWO skiffs
for rounding up divers and I also agree with Jim's other reasons:

> The quicker they get 2 RIBs the better, as the tender is aluminium
>(note correct spelling, Americans!!) and the kind of diving you are
> doing in the Tuamotus is the right kind to bring the tender down on
> your bonce with a crash and knock your brains out.
> Also, with 18 divers, 2 dive guides and 2 boat handlers, there
> just ain?t room enough for everyone. And there were, if I recall,
> at least 14 people with BIG camera rigs.

On our charter, there was hardly ANY camera rigs, so the camera
tables and rinse tanks were almost nearly empty, but the skiff is
still cramped for space.

> So, this was the first trip, and we relied on the expertise of a
> French guy called Pierre, who had been diving the Tuamotus for 20
> odd years, to show us about.

No matter what dive plans are sketched in the briefing (usually
given by the 'Merkin DMs), Pierre goes with his own plan of going
where the ACTION is.  Damn the plans!

Nice guy and great diver -- and he speaks English well enough to
be given the job of BRIEFING toward the end of the trip <G>,
though he often mis-estimated the bottom of the Passes by
20 or more meters.  So, when Pierre says, "We drop to bottom of
Pass -- about 80-100 feet -- and hook there for 8 minutes", the
bottom could be nearly invisible at the point of 80 fsw at
drop-in.  But Pierre gets to the reef-hook spot eventually,
if he doesn't see something first and plunge to 140 fsw chasing
the shadow (usually with everybody following, of course, except
a few who used the 1.3 or 1.4 PPO2 MOD for diving EAN32 and
thought they would get Oxtox immediately at much shallow depths.

So, on the very first dive led by Pierre, we were carefully told
by the Gringo DM to stay on one side of the Pass and NOT get caught
by any outgoing current if we wander to the middle or the other
side -- well, before we even hit bottom on descent, Pierre had
already abandoned the briefed plan, swam across the Pass, wandering
in all directions until he kicked off at full speed (against current)
to point at SOMETHING, which I realized only much later that it
was a "large" (18-footer, says he) hammerhead.  And THAT was the
entire dive -- having seen the ONE large hammerhead, which I only
saw a faint outline, and I was closer to Pierre than 14 other
divers, and I don't even have to wear glasses (according to my
driver's license -- not issued by Florida BTW, where many blind
90 year-olds hold valid driver's licenses).  Let's see you Brits
(Poms?) top THAT!  Aluminium ... bah!

> Basically, the diving is a similar kind of diving at all the atolls
> in that you are diving walls on the outside, the entrances to passes
> and doing drift dives through the passes into the lagoons. You just
> happen to see different things at different passes. Rangiroa is the
> most famous place for diving in the Tuamotus, but by sheer coincidence,
> it had the most disappointing diving. We just didn?t really hit it
> right.

I agree with this assessment!  I saw more sharks and more variety
of sharks (black tip, white tip, lemon) in ONE single site in
Moorea than in any of the Rangiroa sites.

Okay, so much for the prelimiaries ... before the DIVING starts.
This should do for Part II of my pseudo-trip-report.

-- Bob.