· Underwater · 8 min read
Trip Report - Bahamas Aggressor II
I was on the hunt for a trip for February and after some indecision, landed on Bahamas Aggressor II - I booked it on Monday for a Saturday departure. I often book my trips on short notice, but this was easily the shortest. When I first looked, flights from Boston were under $350 round trip, but by the time I booked it was around $500 for a 3 hour direct flight. NICE!
If you prefer a video to reading, I gave a presentation on this trip to our local photo society, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcI4iowLpI4
Images from this trip can be found on my website. If you see one here you like and it is not on the site, shoot me an email and I’ll upload it.
The Journey
tldr: Winter weather significantly slowed me down, but I still caught the boat. Feel free to read on or skip ahead.
My flight was schedule to leave at 11:30am with a 3:11pm arrival. There was some winter weather in the area including some snow at the airport, but there wasn’t really any accumulation in or around Boston. I was cautiously optimistic as we boarded the plane, but then we headed to the de-icing pad. We waited a bit to get de-iced, got de-iced…and then we got the announcement that they had closed the runway due to freezing fog. Back to the gate!
We were about an hour into our “flight” and we were back at the gate. At first, they told us we couldn’t leave the plane (which seemed like a good sign), then we got word that the runways were open, but we needed to refuel and the fuel truck was going to be 45 minutes. So they let people off the plane to go grab snacks and whatever. Immediately after most people de-planed, we got word that the fuel truck was here. Unfortunately, since so many people de-planed, the rest of us had to get off so they could re-board everyone. This was frustrating because I was just chilling with the snacks I brought and JetBlue’s solid movie collection. Of course, we couldn’t immediately board again because of computer issues, so we waited more. They finally got the new, crappy automatic face identification gates up and we slowly made our way through.
Fortunately, they de-iced us at the gate and then we got in line to take off. Several planes took off in front of us, but we paused to allow the plows to work on the far end of the runway. At long last, we were airborne and on our way. We arrived in Nassau 5 hours late, but fortunately the boat was able to wait for me.
The Boat
The Bahamas Aggressor II is nearly identical to the Jardines Aggressor II, which I cruised on back in 2024. We had plenty of space on that boat with 19 guests, but this trip only had 10 so we were comfy. Again, they showed me Cabin #2 (tiny) but with so few guests, I ended up in Cabin #9 by myself. Fantastic! If you’re booking, definitely make sure to pick the rooms toward the stern of the boat.
The dive deck is quite large with two big camera tables and power strips for charging all those lithium batteries.
Each diver has their own station for the week. Liveaboard diving is the best because you set your gear up once for the week and that’s it. Your tank is filled in place between dives and off you go.
As with the other Aggressor boats I’ve been on, the food was varied, tasty, and plentiful. There was fresh food after every dive in addition to always having an assortment of snacks like cookies, candy, and fruit. Eat. Sleep. Dive.
The Diving
They offered 5 dives most days, with a few shortened by traveling between islands. The schedule was:
- Breakfast
- 8am: Dive #1
- Snack
- 10:30am: Dive #2
- Lunch
- Nap (optional, but I’m a big fan)
- 2pm: Dive #3
- Snack
- 4pm: Dive #4
- Dinner
- Night Dive (#5)
We dove off the big boat rather than tenders, which made everything quick and easy. I was underdressed for the 75F water temperature - I have a 3mm wetsuit (that is probably about a 1mm after a few hundred dives) and a 3mm hooded vest. This probably would have been OK with warmer air temperatures (70F and breezy the whole week) or fewer dives per day, but I got pretty chilled. The boat lent me a 3XL 3mm wetsuit to go over the exposure protection I brought and that was much more comfortable. Donning and doffing 3 layers of wetsuits 5 times a day was not the best, so instead I should have just brought my 7mm (or maybe a proper 3mm with the vest).
Overall, the diving was OK. The reef was vibrant in a few spots, but mostly a lot of algae and soft corals. We saw sharks on many of the dives (which is expected in the Bahamas) and the usual cast of snappers, Nassau groupers, grunts, etc. I had some good luck with macro on this trip, finding quite a few red-tipped sea goddess nudibranchs, a number of other tiny nudis, cleaner shrimp, and some blennies. I also got to play around with my fisheye lens and found it was great for the widespread plane wreckage and baited shark dive.
I was the only one who did all 26 dives and there were a number of dives where it was just me and a divemaster, which was nice. Unfortunately, the night dives on this trip were underwhelming. Many just didn’t really have too much going on, but one of them was a bloodworm bloom and was truly unpleasant. While researching after the fact, I learned that “bloodworms” are actually from some sand-dwelling worms that morph their back half into a sperm or egg delivery package and release them into the water column. They have basic light sensory and can swim with the intention of reaching the surface of the water and bursting at the same time as many others. Like many things in nature, this whole act is timed with the moon phase (last quarter in this case) so that they all spawn at the same time. Guess what the moon phase was on the day of this terrible dive? Yup.
Noteworthy Sites
Smuggler’s plane wreck: I had visited this site back in 2019, so I knew what I was in for. I brought the fisheye lens for the day dive, hit the water first, and kicked hard over to the wreck to get some clean shots without other divers. It was a lot of fun playing with the sun angle and capturing the schools of fish around the wreckage. The bright sunshine and shallow water made for some lovely photos despite my total inexperience with the fisheye and general lack of practice with wide angle.
Cobia Cage: This site is an old research project where a local university was trying to cultivate cobia. The enclosure looks like an alien spaceship and is something like 80 feet tall and 80 feet across. It is an impressive sight underwater and there is lots of macro life around the edges. To my surprise, this massive structure had moved! A recent storm had blown it a couple hundred feet from its firm anchorage in the sand so that it was hanging over the wall. Crazy!
Baited shark dive: We had seen reef sharks throughout the week, but on one dive, they dropped a box with some fish chunks into the sand and we all gathered around it. The reef sharks all took turns cruising in to explore the box and cruised by us for some close-up photos.
Lost Blue Hole: Not as large as the famous Great Blue Hole in Belize, but a similar formation: a former cave that collapsed as sea levels rose forming a large circular hole. The last two dives of the trip were at this spot on our way back to Nasssau. We did a dawn dive there and saw a huge loggerhead turtle sleeping in a crevice in the wall and some large crabs and lobsters in the mini side caves. The last dive of the trip was one of my favorites - I was cruising along under the boat looking in the eel grass when I spotted a super colorful leech aglaja. I spent probably 20 minutes taking pictures of several individuals I found in the grass before heading over to the rim of the Blue Hole. This area was dotted with coral heads each with some interesting life on them. The first one I approached had some anemones and cleaner shrimp, the second had a Nassau grouper getting a treatment from a cleaner shrimp, but they froze and separated once they spotted me. This was an awesome dive to end the trip.
Pictures
Lots of text, but where are the pictures?! OK, here they are. If you would like prints, you can find them here. If you see one here you like and it is not on the site, shoot me an email and I’ll upload it.
