Don wrote:

Hi George,

I'm going on the CEII in November.  What are your thoughts about the
diving, boat, crew, etc?

Dive safe,

/Don

Don, we had a great time. The boat is excellent, the crew work their
a.ses off, the food is fine and abundant. The diving ranges from good
to excellent. Statia didn't do much for me, but I loved Saba and St.
Kitts.

A couple of minor complaints: the a/c is very cold and not adjustable.
It just means you will need the blankets on your bed. The deck on the
port side of the dive deck is very hot on your bare feet because the
compressor is directly below. And for some reason, the granny line
always came from the bow rather than from the mooring ball, so if you
had to pull yourself up against current (rarely a problem on our trip),
you had a gap from the bow to the mooring ball that you had to swim,
against the current.

ON the plus side, the briefings were thorough and helpful, the air
fills were generous, the crew let you do what you wanted to do (except
at Statia, where a local volunteer marine park guide led every dive),
and the hot water in the wet suit, hot towel and hot chocolate after
night dives led to several attempts on my part to get Lucy the steward
to marry me. For some reason, she thought my wife might object...

Of course, if you have a different crew, your experience could be very
different. For the record, we had Captain Paul, Paul the purser, Bill
the engineer, Tony the cook, Lucy the steward, Dominique and Adam the
divemasters. At least one or two of the crew are on every dive, not to
supervise, but they are happy to point stuff out if you want to stay
close to them.

If you want to know more, feel free to mail be at
aquadiveratcomcastdotnet.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes.

gc