Turks and Caicos - Liveaboard Comparisons

"Dan Bracuk" <NOTbracuk@pathcom.com> wrote in message
news:tue5f1lih9dtm8gs17plk98butkakn1fju@4ax.com...
> "Ross Garrett" <frederickrossgarrett@hotmail.com> pounded away at his
> keyboard resulting in:
> :It has always confused me somewhat that Wayne has avoided Indonesia and
> PNG.
> :Do you have any idea why?
>
> Because he expects most of his business to come from North America and
> those are long arduous journeys?

I don't think so. The record of boats in Indonesia and PNG is quite good. I
suspect he just didn't get there in time and would now have to try and enter
a mature market. I say this because he is going to put a boat in West Papua
at Raja Ampat...a place that as of yet isn't serviced from local but rather
from across the Molucca Sea. In essence I think he learned a lesson from not
jumping into PNG hard and early.

> It's why I haven't been to those places.

I understand, but I also understand that a boat in these locales is only
looking for 7 -8 hundred passengers per year, from across the globe. And
disposable income has grown exponentially over the last decade.

"Dan Bracuk" <NOTbracuk@pathcom.com> wrote in message
news:euf5f1ted3fbc6dclan72t5p4fmihl38b5@4ax.com...
> "Ross Garrett" <frederickrossgarrett@hotmail.com> pounded away at his
> keyboard resulting in:
> :I understand, but I also understand that a boat in these locales is only
> :looking for 7 -8 hundred passengers per year, from across the globe. And
> :disposable income has grown exponentially over the last decade.
>
> It ain't necessarily the money that's most precious. For some of us,
> it's the leisure time.

I'll agree with you there, Dan. My SE Asia dive trips are always in
conjunction with a much longer visit with family. That makes the length of
the getting there and back, almost worth it.

I'm going to have one heck of a time convincing myself to make an early
return. I haven't accumulated quite enough points to go First Class again
and having made the trip that way last time, I'm loath to get back in coach.
(snip)

Jason wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 17:11:24 -0700, Reef Fish wrote:
>
> > That's certainly true. The Red Sea and Maldive divers are almost
> > exclusively landbased.
>
> Not true. There are a lot of day boats in the Red Sea, but there are also
> a lot of liveaboards. The further south you go, the more it's the preserve
> of just the liveaboard boats.

Another POM (used non-derogatorily of course <G>> from the UK.
Not sure if you're one of the Olde Tymer Jasons or a new Jason,
welcome just the same. <A new Jason, I think, judging from your
webpage -- a nice one BTW>

When one is talking about LIVEABOARDS, as Ross and I were discussing,
any "day boat" is "landbased".

The "further south" is not easily accessible by day boats, and
that was why Peter Hughes TRIED to have a liveaboard running
there that dive both the north and the remote south -- that was
in the mid-1990s I believe.

I was one of the FIRST passengers to sign up for that Red-Sea
charter, but it was cancalled because only three divers signed
up for it. It was traveller's hell (at least at that time)
for divers from the USA to get to even Peter's liveaboard. One
HAD to stay overnight at Cairo -- I believe the travel was
arranged by the PhD Fkeet travek agent -- for the AIR connection,
then take busses, ride camels, and walk for days in the desert to
get to the liveaboard pier.

That was my first and last attempt to dive the Red Sea, while
one of brit friends, the "parrotfish" with whom I dived in the
Cozumel NEDfest, because of his colorful diving attire, dives
the Red Sea all the time because it is so convenient to get there
from the UK! But I could leave home in the morning, arrive
Cozumel the SAME morning, and DIVE in the afternoon the same
day. That's why I stopped counting after 1200 dives in
Cozumel several years ago.

>
> There are some liveaboards in the Maldives. Not a huge amount, but it's
> probably in double figures. How much of an advantage a liveaboard is there
> is another matter. The atolls you're allowed to dive in are the ones with
> the resorts in them. So no site is more than an hour or two from a
> landbased operation.

So, I gather you agree that my Asian diving friends who dive the
Maldives from landbased operations are not overly biased in their
negative assessments about diving the Maldives, compared to diving
in Indonesia, the Indo-Pacific, and Australia.

-- Bob.
>
> You do seem some diver damage there, but it was the coral bleaching that
> had the most effect. It is recovering quite quickly. Tops of the reefs
> still aren't what they used to be though.
>
> Jason
>
> --
> http://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for Aussie diving reports including
> Cape Tribulation, Cairns, Airlie Beach, Exmouth and the HMAS Swan

On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 07:15:47 -0700, Reef Fish wrote:

> When one is talking about LIVEABOARDS, as Ross and I were discussing, any
> "day boat" is "landbased".

I know. And there are loads of liveaboards in the Red Sea. They're just
marketed to Europeans, unsurprisingly. I did a northern Red Sea trip on
Cyclone back in December. That one company, www.scuba.co.uk, have got 8
liveaboards in the Red Sea alone, and there are plenty of other companies
around. The levels of service are probably lower than those marketed for
North Americans, but so are the prices.

> So, I gather you agree that my Asian diving friends who dive the
> Maldives from landbased operations are not overly biased in their
> negative assessments about diving the Maldives, compared to diving in
> Indonesia, the Indo-Pacific, and Australia.

In Indonesia, I've only done Bali and wasn't greatly impressed. I think
the Maldives is a lot better than the Great Barrier Reef. Coral isn't much
worse, though different, but the fish life is far, far better in the
Maldives.

And they're certainly better than anywhere I've been in the Caribbean. I
met a dive guide in Cozumel, whom I'd last met working in the Maldives.
Small world. After a couple of dives at Palancar, our comment was that it
was similar to the Maldives, but without the fish.

And from the UK, the flight times aren't that different.

Jason

--
http://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for Australian trip reports including
New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia

Jason wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 07:15:47 -0700, Reef Fish wrote:
>
> > When one is talking about LIVEABOARDS, as Ross and I were discussing, any
> > "day boat" is "landbased".
>
> I know. And there are loads of liveaboards in the Red Sea. They're just
> marketed to Europeans, unsurprisingly.

Whatever that means, as Cairns liveaboards are matketed to the
Japenese and Aussie divers? ;)


> > So, I gather you agree that my Asian diving friends who dive the
> > Maldives from landbased operations are not overly biased in their
> > negative assessments about diving the Maldives, compared to diving in
> > Indonesia, the Indo-Pacific, and Australia.
>
> In Indonesia, I've only done Bali and wasn't greatly impressed.

I am an clueless newbie when it comes to diving Asia and the
Indo-Pacific, and I wasn't greatly impressed with Bali diving
either, though it was very good and I was fortunate to encounter
the only mola mola I had ever seen diving the Batu Aba site.


> And they're certainly better than anywhere I've been in the Caribbean.

I think that's an unfair generalization, probably the result that
you HAVEN'T dived many locations in the Caribbean.

> I
> met a dive guide in Cozumel, whom I'd last met working in the Maldives.
> Small world. After a couple of dives at Palancar, our comment was that it
> was similar to the Maldives, but without the fish.

LOL! Different kinds of fish perhaps, but if you want to see fish,
you'll see plenty at the Punta Tunich site of Palancar. No fish
on the Santa Rosa Wall, and not many fish on the other Palancar
walls either, because you dive the massive coral structures, the
swim throughs, and the rich corals and high vis on the Palancar
walls between 150 and 200 fsw.

The owner of Dive Paradise, Apple, started her diving career in
the Maldives. There she met my scuba-shop owner friend Paolo
in South Carolina. If you think that's "small world", I dived
with Pedro and his brother who BOTH moved from Cozumel to the
Maldives.

In the case of Pedro, I think he was forced to move because I
wrote about a dive in which he took an uncertified student to
164 fsw (I knew because I loaned him the computer <G>) when he
was supposed to dive to a "secret wall" with me to 150 fsw.
At any rate, the Scuba-L Fascist, Nick Simicich apparently
reported him to PADI, and PADI must have pulled Pedro's
Instructor rank and every diving PADI credential to allow
Pedro to make a living in Cozumel in the dive business,

But Pedro was a safe diver -- a little bit on the crazy side
perhaps, and my wife and I held his student down for the
long "safety stop" when they sucked his tank down to 100 psi
and he had to surface.

But Pedro was back to Cozumel in 1996 (working for Papa Hogs)
and my friend Jeff wrote about Pedro in 1996:

http://tinyurl.com/8o873

Jeff dived with me and Pedro in both 1994 and 1996. Jeff was
narked both times, below 120 fsw, when we were just looking for
the mythical "Alexandria Wall". There was an undercut, but
there was no such thing as the Alexzandria Wall in Cozumel.
Pedro just made it up, and later admitted it, when he realized
that I had done every divable wall in Cozumel.

But I digress on your "small world" remark. It is indeed a
Small World.

-- Bob.

On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 09:30:26 -0700, Reef Fish wrote:

>> I know. And there are loads of liveaboards in the Red Sea. They're just
>> marketed to Europeans, unsurprisingly.
>
> Whatever that means, as Cairns liveaboards are matketed to the Japenese
> and Aussie divers? ;)

A lot of them are marketed as packages with the charter flights and
everything from the UK included.

>> And they're certainly better than anywhere I've been in the Caribbean.
>
> I think that's an unfair generalization, probably the result that you
> HAVEN'T dived many locations in the Caribbean.

Hmm, Mexico, Bahamas, Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts, Antigua, Cuba and
Aruba. It's a few places.

> LOL! Different kinds of fish perhaps, but if you want to see fish,
> you'll see plenty at the Punta Tunich site of Palancar. No fish on the
> Santa Rosa Wall, and not many fish on the other Palancar walls either,
> because you dive the massive coral structures, the swim throughs, and
> the rich corals and high vis on the Palancar walls between 150 and 200
> fsw.

There just aren't the nutrients in the water in the Caribbean that they're
are in the Maldives. This does sometimes mean the viz can be down, but the
sheer number of fish more than makes up for it, and usually it's good.
Besides, the mantas and whale sharks have to eat something.

I wouldn't go on a snorkelling holiday to the Maldives, because above 20
feet, the coral still isn't great. Below that, it's fine. There's also a
lot of soft coral that seems to have taken advantage of the changing
conditions. There is a reason I've been 11 times. And that's not usual.
It's a place that has a lot of return visitors.

Jason

--
http://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for Aussie diving reports including
the Coral Sea, Ningaloo reef, the Solitaries and Byron Bay

Ross Garrett wrote:
> "Dan Bracuk" <NOTbracuk@pathcom.com> wrote in message
> news:euf5f1ted3fbc6dclan72t5p4fmihl38b5@4ax.com...
> > "Ross Garrett" <frederickrossgarrett@hotmail.com> pounded away at his
> > keyboard resulting in:
> > :I understand, but I also understand that a boat in these locales is only
> > :looking for 7 -8 hundred passengers per year, from across the globe. And
> > :disposable income has grown exponentially over the last decade.
> >
> > It ain't necessarily the money that's most precious. For some of us,
> > it's the leisure time.
>
> It isn't pertinent that some people may not have the time.

But it ain't impertinent to hear a Canadian use "ain't", and a
Denverite to say isn't pertinent".

> Time is always a consideration, but that won't stifle the scuba-travel
> industry as lack of leisure money most certainly will.

For the few rare times, I straddle the fence on this issue, but
leans toward Dan's position.

For scuba folks in the 'Merkas, money and time are BOTH constrints,
but time may be a bigger constraint than money, especially for
those (not in Dan's case) who can AFFORD only one (or two) week(s)
a year say, from their work. In those cases, time IS the essence,
and money is only secondary in choosing a dive location.

-- Bob.

"Jason" <jason.news.nospam@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
newsan.2005.08.05.13.50.05.552039@ntlworld.com.. .
> On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 17:11:24 -0700, Reef Fish wrote:
>
>> That's certainly true. The Red Sea and Maldive divers are almost
>> exclusively landbased.
>
> Not true. There are a lot of day boats in the Red Sea, but there are also
> a lot of liveaboards. The further south you go, the more it's the preserve
> of just the liveaboard boats.

The fact that there are numerous liveaboards plying Egyptian Red Sea waters
doesn't negate the fact that those waters are overwhelmingly (almost
exclusively) dived by day-boaters. It's really nothing but a numbers issue
and on that point Reef Fish wasn't incorrect. The vast majority of
diver-days in the Red Sea occur from land, and the land-based system seems
to be growing as Egypt develops and installs more and more roads and
services to accomodate the growing resort placement.

> There are some liveaboards in the Maldives. Not a huge amount, but it's
> probably in double figures.

Actually, I believe it is over twenty now...which is precious few for such
an expanse of ocean.

> How much of an advantage a liveaboard is there
> is another matter

Oh, I think it is an immense advantage. I distinctly found my trip on the
Keema to be of a much higher quality of diving than either of my land-based
visits. No question in my mind that to see the better diving in Maldives one
must do it from a proper liveaboard with the proper itinerary.

> The atolls you're allowed to dive in are the ones with
> the resorts in them.

There are what 200 or so inhabited island in the Maldives? That leaves,
depending on whether your count is pre or post-tsunami, a minimum of 1,000
inhabitable island/atolls and 5,000+/- coral atolls remaining, and they are
not even close to all being set-offs. That is a lot of available diving that
day boats cannot reach as well a a lot of diving outside the atolls as well
as along the channels. Gourgeous diving really. My best dives were not in
the atolls, they were in the channels where the currents ran quite strong at
times. Really wonderful pelagic and schooling action in the channels and
passes.

> So no site is more than an hour or two from a
> landbased operation.

There are hundreds of known sites more than 2 hours from a land-based
operation. Heck the island chain itself is 11 or 12 hundred miles long. The
problem I saw there was that most of these are without permanent mooring.
The only charted divesites seem to be the ones land-based ops
frequent....other than the 30 or 40 sites the liveaboards use to advertise.

"Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1123260998.226559.61880@f14g2000cwb.googlegro ups.com...

> But it ain't impertinent to hear a Canadian use "ain't", and a
> Denverite to say isn't pertinent".

....or a Reef Fish prognosticate when chilly will reply again!

"I predicted you would be here, 3 minutes before your post appeared "

Ross Garrett wrote:
> "Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1123260998.226559.61880@f14g2000cwb.googlegro ups.com...
>
> > But it ain't impertinent to hear a Canadian use "ain't", and a
> > Denverite to say isn't pertinent".
>
> ...or a Reef Fish prognosticate when chilly will reply again!
>
> "I predicted you would be here, 3 minutes before your post appeared "

That's because chilly at least posted something about ONE divable
location she had been among the hundreds we discussed.

Unlike her usual lifeless twin Alan Street who had not dived
ANYWHERE, and had thick enough skin to re-appear with having
anything to say about SCUBA, when he was singing his tune only
two days ago:

AS> Feesh, you really need to get a life.

I won't predict when Bob Crownfield will appear either.
Someone will have to say something really insulting about me
before Crownfield will exhume himself from the dead to proclaim:

*> You win the Laugh of the Day award.

That's Crownfield's entire LIFE right there.

Stick around. You'll see a few of these lifeless critters of
rec.scuba.* yet. Not many of them are left, but then stench
are still here.

-- Bob.