Scuba Dive LiveAboard with the Dancer Fleet

Spectacular Encounters in Cocos

See more Cocos Island
Photos on Facebook

From the Chairman & CEO:
Date: Sept. 24 - Oct.. 4, 2011

This charter to Cocos we had one of our very best Dive Centers customers, International Scuba from the Dallas Texas area, bring a large group and they were joined by the 2 managers from Dive BVI that are old friends plus four guests from the UK and four from California.

Everyone had plenty of time on the 30 hour crossing to get acquainted and share their personal diving experiences and what they wanted to see at Cocos as well as watch our dolphin escorts at the bow. Everyone was experienced divers so we jumped right in to the signature dives that Cocos offers.

Casey ensured that those up early and wanting to be stretched and ready for the advanced diving that Cocos offers held a yoga class at 6AM most mornings on the sun deck. There was also no end to the practical jokes that these long time Texas friends would pull on each other!

Our first dive was at Manuelita where we encountered the great numbers of white tip sharks that are everywhere in Cocos plus, as an added bonus, two black frogfish! Although black frogfish are a photographer’s nightmare, the Okeanos Staff found two orange ones later in the charter that every photographer was able to capture with success.

On the deep, advanced sites such as Dos Amigos, Dirty Rock and Alcyone, we encountered the large schools of Hammerheads and the cruising Galapagos sharks that has made Cocos so famous. There is no thrill better than watching hundreds of hammerheads right in front of you, especially when one decides to come closer and give you a perspective of just how large this fish are!

We also had spectacular encounters with large numbers of marble rays, some so massive you could not stretch your arms out from wingtip to wingtip. They would gracefully swim amongst all the divers and presented some amazing photo opportunities.

And just when you thought the photo opportunities were winding down, along comes a Tiger Shark that Graham photographed as it checked out his wife Linda!

If you wanted to take a break from viewing all the hammerheads, there were always octopus, schools of leather bass, resting white tips and walls of yellow stripes to check out. I setup my Nikon D7000 camera for super macro on a couple of dives with a 105 Macro attached to a 1.4 convertor and a +5 diopter. There were plenty of blennies, gobies, shrimps and juvenile fish to capture.

We ended the charter with the best night dive of any destination worldwide. This dive at Manuelita has hundreds of white tips using your light to find prey and when one does, it is starts a feeding frenzy that cannot be duplicated anywhere else. It is such an awe inspiring sight to be just on the fringe of this excitement that you have to remind yourself to trigger the shutter release!

For any one wanting to explore the top side of Cocos, we provided two land excursions. One in Wafer Bay where the main ranger station is and one in Chatam Bay where the smaller ranger outpost is located. Views of beautiful waterfalls, local fauna of deer, red footed boobies with their snow white young and the ever interesting frigates birds could be spotted and photographed.

Thanks to all our guests this week, thanks to Captain Beto and his amazing staff and thanks to Franchisee Jorge for continuing to uphold the high Aggressor standards!

Dream, Dive, Discover

2011 Industry Charter - Turks & Caicos

See more Turks & Caicos
Photos on Facebook

From the Chairman & CEO:
Date: Aug 27 - Sept. 3, 2011

Each year, we pick one destination to host the annual ‘Industry Charter’. This is a charter where we invite an eclectic mix of individuals from within the diving community for a week of relaxed diving. This is usually the only time most get to go diving without their customers and can enjoy a week where they are not instructing, leading, guiding, solving...you get the picture.

We had represented this week dive centers, magazines, professional photographers, travel agents, and equipment manufacturers. Although we were on the back end of a hurricane, and the vis at the beginning of the week was down considerably, the relaxed atmosphere of a yacht full of seasoned veterans made even these first few dives enjoyable.

It was interesting how quickly the water was clearing every day. I will say though that the low vis combined with the high numbers of sharks we had made for more exciting diving! When you see them coming from 200 feet away, it is not nearly as impressive as them coming into range at 30 feet!

As with every week, there is always something new that gets caught in the photographers photos when back reviewing onboard. This week was not only a Pederson Cleaner Shrimp with eggs but also a Spotted Cleaner Shrimp with eggs!

We enjoyed the diving and most importantly the kinship of everyone and look forward to next years Industry week!

Dream, Dive, Discover

What do you go to Galapagos to see...

See more Galapagos Photos
on Facebook

From the Chairman & CEO:
Date: August, 2011

...whale sharks, large schools of hammerheads, galapagos sharks, large schools of eagle rays, penguins, flightless cormorants, mola mola, red lipped bat fish, horn sharks, blue footed boobies, marine iguanas, red footed boobies, giant tortoises, lava tube caves, Darwin’s Arch? All these plus orca’s, sea horses, and large schools of the typical fish in the Galapagos were all checked off the list last week!

We had a great group of guests last week from around the globe as well as several divers I had the pleasure of being on charter with before. All were experiencing the wonders of Galapagos that never cease to amaze even those that have visited before.

Dropping in at Darwin’s Arch, on top of a whale shark (almost literally), is a thrill that cannot be duplicated any where else. With the historic backdrop of the arch and the mass of activity underwater, hundreds of dolphin swimming by at the surface, it is definitely an adrenaline junkie’s dream dive.

At Wolfe, we had large schools of eagle rays that were as close and friendly as the sting rays in Grand Cayman. They continued to circle and glide through the group of divers as long as we were willing to stay (or as long as we could make our air last!).

We always start the week off with a check out dive with the playful sea lions and end the week at Isabela where we encounter them again.

At the new dive site on Isabela, we also enjoyed diving with the mola mola, flightless cormorant, penguins, sea horses and marine iguanas as well as the blue footed boobies above the water.

Thanks to Captain Hector, Cruise Director Andres, our great diving staff Nelson and Richard and the rest of the Galapagos Aggressor II staff! It was again a pleasure diving and cruising with you in Galapagos!

Dream, Dive, Discover

Sunshine and Calm Sea on the Palau Aggressor II

From the Chairman & CEO:
Date: July, 2011

The weather had apparently been marginal for the prior... few weeks; we brought sunshine and calm seas for ours! I travel about 5 or 6 times a year to our destinations, conduct inspections, meet any new crew and of course, DIVE!

We started out the week with a small group that came in early getting a day tour of Koror. Nice visit o the local museum, great local restaurant for lunch and a little shopping at their ‘mall’.

This week we had in addition to myself, President Wayne Hasson and industry icon, Stan Waterman. Palau is always a great diving destination and when you add Stan Waterman into the mix for topside entertainment, it becomes a sensory overload.

Shark Feeding Frenzy As expected, we had great encounters at Blue Corner and Ulong with bait balls, sharks and groupers feeding and the ever present curious Napoleon Wrasses. This week, we even had a curious bumphead parrot that kept up with us for most of the dive! These are usually only found in small schools and pay no attention to anything except crunching on the coral. This one was a true photo hound, posing by every bit of growth we passed.

We had plenty of turtle encounters, a manta ray, lots of anemone fish, too many different species of butterfly fish to list and the occasional nudibranch. Mandarin fish were photographed at the entrance to the chandelier cave dive that ends our week on the Palau Aggressor.

WWII Marine Memorial in Palau

We had a very sobering visit to Peleliu and a tour of the military battlefields and monuments that are now erected. 10,000 marines died during the campaign to retake the island and unfortunately, it does not get a lot of space in WWII history.

Chef Marc, a trained culinary genius, kept everyone full and happy in the dining room and with the between dive snacks. The dive staff was excellent at finding and pointing out critters and creatures. The camera table was completely full of aquatica housings some point and shoots and a couple of video cameras.

Thanks to the entire Palau Aggressor II staff for another amazing week!

Wayne B. Brown
CEO