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 Fortunately, that info is OBSOLETE, as of October 17, for Tahiti Aggressor divers, and so is the baggage info given in the Air Tahiti Nui webpage cited: ONE carry-on of 7.5 kgs (16.5 lbs), and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.