The new Capt was the Engineer on the Mona trip and he did a great job running the boat and keeping us safe and sound. Of course he gave me grief all week but he said that was because he liked me. (Trust me...in the future ask people like that to like you a bit less! ) LOL!!!
The boat just got a new chef that blew the kitchen cabinet doors off their hinges with his ability to hit the ground running. It was like a tv reality show...throw the chef into a kitchen he has never seen before on a boat no less using only what the previous cook(s) have stocked the limited kitchen with and see what he can do sight unseen for 29 hungry divers! Allow me to be the first to say that not only did NO ONE go hungry...many of us gained more weight than we would of liked and some of us will soon have the recipies to continue to do the damage at home! All in all I had a wonderful week and would do it over again in a heartbeat! (In fact I looked very seriously at staying another week...YES IT WAS THAT GOOD!!!) It was relaxing...the divers were great as SingleDivers.com had the chance to dive with 10 awesome divers from the Hamptons, 2 great guys from Florida and an outgoing Canadian couple who were regular Nekton groupies! The crew had several of our favorites from our Decemeber Mona trip and a number of new favorites to add to the list! However as is the case with most dive trips... it was not totally perfect. The island sits in such a way as it is a hurricane break and as such there is very little reef structure at very shallow levels. The mind blowing reefs were usually in the 70+ range. While some reef structure exists in the 45-60 ft range...its mostly scrub coral and not very special as far as coral structure goes. But get a bit deeper and you will be blown away by the swim thrus...HUGE sponge growth and formations covering entire walls and fish and marine life that don't recognize man. Yep it was true...so many fish just came up to see what who were were! So note to future divers...this is not a newbie destination ONLY because the dives need to be in the 70-100 ft range to maximize the experience. You can stay shallow but you'll miss the mind blowing coral and sponges.
I can't tell you how many game fish INCLUDING wahoo that swam up to me to see what I was. I have NEVER experienced this sort of naivety of the fish life and it was truly a once in a lifetime experience. (Yes I am working on our NEXT dates to Mayaguana for those interested!)
Previous divers have reported cold water and the temps had warmed up to as much as 79 but we had a number of dives that ranged from 76 to 79 so it varied. This is NOT a place to go too early unless you are warm blooded or cheat and wear LOTS of thermal protection like I did!
Previous divers have also reported lack of fish diversity...well that is not the case. There are tons of different fish and critters but they are spread out so over a large area so perhaps not as obvious as other places might be. I saw more different types of fish and animals than I have anywhere in the Caribbean. In fact our very own Bruce aka ScubaShafer has captured some truly amazing photos (he also took 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the photo contest on the boat) and will be sharing those pics for several articles to be written in the next few weeks on Mayaguana.
One fish that was TOO ABUNDANT was the infamous lionfish. They were everywhere and certainly decimating the juvenial fish populations. However the Nekton has started a campaign to fight back. On each dive they use pull spears to hunt the lionfish and then feed the carcass to the large groupers and sharks. Over the past few months they have slowly been teaching the groupers and sharks that lionfish are indeed a viable food source. It seems to be working. In the meantime I got a chance to help the cause and after a few attempts got pretty good. I had to finish the job with a separate sharpened photo stick as I did not want them to swim off and suffer...nor did I want to risk just injuring them and then have them tell all the others to be wary of divers. Now some people thought I was enjoying the process way too much and I strongly protest names such as 'Huntress of the Sea' and 'Maiden of Death'. But it did make me feel better to know that the 30 or so lionfish I killed will not keep contributing to the problem. I just wish we had made a dent in them...for everyone you killed 5 more replaced them. On some sites they would just look at their bleeding buddy as to say..."what just happened to Larry the Lionfish?" On other sites they were already being trained by previous diver misses and would hide when they saw the spear.
About the only complaint I had was several days of unrelenting wind that forced us to dive several of the same spots over again vs exploring the full 17 new spots that boat has scoped out. However hindsight being 20/20...I would dive those spots over and over again as they were so awesome then to dive a different spot every dive in other places in the Caribbean.
And like many dive boats...the Nekton had a few 'boat issues' namely a failed ac compressor unit in one of the cabins making the room far too warm for anyone but me! However my roomie Kelly was a true champ and dealt with it while the boat figured out how to get it fixed and mop up the water leakage that also resulted from the faulty a/c compressor. And after finally getting the boat's nitrox compressor fixed properly/overhauled the 2nd generator went out on the boat a couple of weeks ago. This generator is not needed for USCG compliance but it is needed to handle the overflow power needs of the boat and to run the nitrox compressor. And although they got the new generator installed while we were there the mounting brackets were not right and had to be remilled/remade on the island essentially taking up the entire week leaving us all to dive only air. Of course the boat refunded everyone their money and in fact helped me out as I was not able to issue a refund check to everyone so Nekton gave everyone a $195 credit that could be used towards tips, merchandise or even a future trip. 
You know its been a while since I dove straight air and it will be an even longer time before I do it again if I can help it. I like others found I was more tired and hit the rack several hours earlier than usual. I could not of course stay down as long as I ran out of bottom time on every dive and my nitrogen loading was so much using air diving 4-5 dives a day that I opted not to dive on the last partial day in order to give myself a safer margin before flying. All in all the trip was totally worth it for the price we paid. At $1395 + $200 in fees/taxes you just can't beat 5 dives a day, all your meals and snacks, lodging in a private cabin with only 2 people in it, with side by side beds and not bunk beds, with a private bath for each cabin...all for about $225 a day + airfare. I've spent only a hundred or so less for one day less diving on the Spree and had only 2 showers for 24 people, 4 heads for 24 people and sleep either 4 or 8 to a shared bunk arrangement. So at the end of the day...the trip was a great value...the best you'll find on ANY liveaboard and while we had a few problems...they weren't trip breakers and the diving surpassed anything I could of imagined and the group of friends both old and new on this boat made the week unforgettable.
I can't wait to go back so be watching the schedule for the NEXT Mayaguana trip!
The next time we'll try to do 2 back to back trips...YES TWO WEEKS...I SAID IT WAS AMAZING DIVING DIDN'T I!!!! You'll be able to do 1 or both trips! Ok I'll let others chime in...got to do some more catch up and then I'll add more! -ww
