Nope.  All local crew except for DM Paula (our other DM was the Captain,
"Beto").  I'm a bit pissed off.  Instead of posting a trip report, I was
going to be lazy and post a link to the Aggressor's "Captain's Log" but they
skipped my trip on their site.

The crew was great.  Beto had a good sense of humor and we even got stoic
Paula to crack a smile by the end of the trip.  Our dinghy driver, quiet
Charlie, got in the spirit of things and the last night, when the crew took
their bows, he called out "Who's the best dinghy?" and got his resounding
response, "Dinghy dos!"  I wish I could remember the names of any of the
rest of them, but I'm not so hot with names.

But the A/C was really crummy.  It barely trickled out of the cabin vent and
there was no way to adjust it.  The three upstairs cabins, on the other
hand, complained that theirs were too powerful even when turned down (theirs
were adjustable).  In the salon it was usually tolerable, but during
mealtime it got quite warm with the kitchen door open and a full boatload of
22 divers' body heat.  Oddly they carried French wine, rather than the
Chilean I would have expected.  Beer was on tap on the sundeck, next to the
soda machine.  Food was generally good, except that the boat's FAQ says they
serve a variety of beef, chicken, and/or seafood every night, and somehow
pork ended up being the star for two of the meals, making a good pig-hating
Jew like moi go vegetarian those nights.  Actually, on pork night #2, they
gave me something with chicken breast instead since there were already a few
on the boat who had claimed they didn't eat red meat and we even had one
real vegetarian.  Desserts were very colorful.  Snacks were boring.  Usually
it was just a platter of fresh fruit.  Twice they had cheese empanadas.
Once, some burnt cookies.  And twice, fried mashed plaintain "chips" with
bean dip.

Back to the A/C.  If you sniffed the salon vent, it smelled of mold and
fungus.  By the end of the trip, over half the boat was complaining of some
sort of nasal or sinus congestion.  I had a sore throat by halfway through
the trip and it took me about a week after I got back home before I felt
100% again.  If I were to take the boat again, I'd wear a hospital mask at
all times indoors.

Another gripe was the head.  En-suite, yes, but without a separate shower.
That always makes for a wet toilet seat which I hate.  Also, they buttressed
the usual no-flushing-foreign-material briefing with a request that we even
put used TP in the trash can.  I know hundreds of millions of Latin
Americans do that on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean it's right.  Plus,
they only seemed to empty the trash can every other day.  Apparently if
you're in your room napping when they're cleaning rooms, they skip you until
the next day.  We also kept running out of toilet paper and had to steal
more from the deck head.

But no bugs spotted anywhere, which is nice.  We actually had good weather,
smack dab in the middle of the rainy season.  Only a couple half-days of
rain, and then it rained most of the ride back.  Crossings weren't too bad.
I only vomited a bit on the second day of the trip while we were still
enroute to the island and that's because I let my Dramamine lapse.  I'm not
used to taking it continuously because on most boats I'd already be there by
the time I woke up in the morning.  But it eventually got better by the
evening and I was fine all the way back even with slightly rougher seas.

Passengers were a mixed bunch.  A few serious videographers, intent on
getting their work into the San Diego Underwater Film Exhibition in October,
and another videographer who styled himself a professional and even had
business cards made up.  A few less intent videographers, including myself,
a few big digital photo systems, and a few more point and shoot cameras, and
you had every inch of the three-tiered camera table and every possible space
at the charging stations (even with several power strips added) packed with
gear.

Otherwise, we had a good mix of people aboard.  All Americans.  One of
Sylvia Earle's daughters, who brought a guitar, was a fellow liberal and we
happily bitched away the nights over too much wine, complaining about Bush
and his evil cohorts.  Her guitar was also played heavily by a few other
talented passengers, and occasionally joined by a doctor with a harmonica.
We had another doctor (retired), a surgical nurse, a couple business owners,
a psychologist, a teacher, a couple engineers, a Nekton captain who's soon
to be the second captain on the Truk Odyssey, the head of the San Diego
County Sheriff's Dive Team and his son, and an assistant curator of the Maui
Ocean Center who told us wonderful tales of catching live tiger sharks for
the shark tank and also played a mean guitar.  Half the boat had been there
at least once before.  For three guys, this was their fourth trip.

I thought the shark encounters were a bit more intense at Wolf and Darwin
Islands, but the water was certainly warmer and clearer at Coco.  Plus the
hammerheads, while they didn't get as close as the Galapagos, were
definitely schooling in greater numbers.  It was amazing to see twenty or so
of the beasts, silhouetted by the sun, cruising in a circle 50-60' above
where you're perched at 105' on Alcyon.  We did that dive a few times, as
well as Punta Maria, which was a follow-the-line down to ledge at 90', then
hang on while watching the big Galapagos sharks circle around ominously,
eels and octopi all over, lobsters by the dozens under the ledge, marbled
rays in every little sand patch.  Silverado was a real easy spot, sitting in
the rubble at 60' around a mesa-like cleaning station while three fat
silvertips (one was pregnant and really fat) wandered in and out getting
cleaned, a couple snowflake morays popped their heads up next to me, then we
followed around a free-swimming zebra moray toward the end of the dive.

We found the red-lipped batfish at 105' in the sand off Ulloa before the DM
did, which was fortunate since we had to kick against a strong current to
get back to the rock and ended up sucking down much of the rest of our air.
Manuelita was a nice spot for day diving, but incredible at night when the
whitetips cover the reef everywhere you look, moving in and out of crevices
looking for a free meal.  But the best spot of all, and we did it three or
four times, was Dirty Rock, a surgy, current-ridden pinnacle that was
covered with life.  Big schools of trevallies, many in mating pairs where
one partner (the male, I believe) is black.  A couple yellow fins swam by,
lots of leather bass that come right up to kiss your mask - one sat still
while a diver petted it, neat aggregations of parrotfish hanging with
trumpetfish and hordes of surgeonfish, hammerheads schooling around you, a
quick glance around the rock finds you a white tip in a crevice, a marbled
ray in a little pit, a fat green moray, an eagle ray off in the distance.
Easy to multilevel since you can start at around 100' looking for bigger
stuff, then make your way slowly up to 40', where the surge finally gets to
you.

Overall, I preferred the Galapagos.  Frankly I liked the boat there
(Aggressor II) much better.  It was cleaner, all teak-lined, the crew worked
harder (including cleaning our gear for us rather than just handing us a
hose), the food was better, and I preferred gearing up on the mothership,
then transferring to the zodiac over the Cocos system of keeping the tanks
aboard the skiffs where one had to don their gear while packed in with 10
other divers, a DM, a dinghy driver, and a big tank rack down the middle of
the boat.  Plus the Galapagos provides more variety, with completely
different diving between the southern islands and Wolf and Darwin, not to
mention the land tours.  And whale shark sightings are more assured.  With
the long boat crossing required for Cocos, I can't see me doing this trip
more than once, but I'm definitely itching to go back to the Galapagos,
preferably on a 10-day Peter Hughes itinerary.