Dale always writes the best trip reports, so I'm using the bulk of his report as mine!  As most of you know, Belize owes me a good time!  Four years ago, I had a miserable time there, but thank goodness this trip made up for it!  Three of the past four years New Years have been spent in some exotic place scuba diving. This year's plans took a sudden turn on October 8, 2001!  Dale, Sherrie, Rick and I were scheduled to dive Belize aboard the Peter Hughes Wave Dancer. Hurricane Iris, packing 140 mph winds, made landfall in the Southern Placencia) region of the Central American Country of Belize during the evening of October 8, capsizing the live aboard with all twenty-eight passengers and crew onboard. The loss of life as a result was more than most divers could comprehend. Our hearts and prayers went out to all involved in the horrible event. Our plans certainly had to change, assuming we even wanted to go to Belize. Much talk and soul searching took place, but we decided we would still attempt to go. After some rather stressful negotiations, Peter Hughes made a transfer of our deposits to the Nekton Pilot. This would allow us to keep the same airfares we had already paid for and still get to dive Belize. I had always wanted to dive off the Nekton so this was actually a good option.

        Rick had decided he would go to Belize a week early and do some sight seeing.  Sherrie and I took an 8:45 am flight from Austin to Dallas, where we would meet Dale to join us for the the flight to Belize.  In order to comply with being at the airport 2 hours prior to international flying, we were up mighty early!  I spent the night at Sherrie's so that we could use the shuttle service and arrive at the airport together.  When we boarded the plane, we noticed Larry Gatlin, of the Gatlin Brothers, was also on our flight.  It was all we could do not to break out in "All The Gold in California!"  We arrived in Dallas just fine, but our flight to Belize was an hour late, but it worked out great because Dale's plane was running late as well!   He met us at the gate and finally we were all on our way to Belize. Customs in Belize was no problem, we were greeted by Tisa from the Nekton, our luggage was put on the truck and taken to the Nekton while we jumped into a van to be taken to the Radisson to await the rest of the divers before boarding the Nekton. The first thing on everyone's mind was food. Nobody had eaten since breakfast, airlines seem to think humans can exist on snacks and soft drinks these days. We were told to go across the street to the Smoky Mermaid for a casual dinner or to the Radisson restaurant for a more formal affair. On our way to the Smoky Mermaid we ran into Rick. He told us of the adventures he had in the jungle during the previous four days. It sounded like he had a pretty good time.  The Nekton representatives came to pick us up in their vans, and we met a few of the other divers we would be spending the week with.  I got into the van and met Oliver, who was to be the envy of my nephew as he was covered with tattoos!  I said, "Oh my gosh, we're going to be diving with Tommy Lee."  Oliver didn't miss a beat as he said, "This is going to be a wild trip!"  Oliver is a musician and record producer from California.  He was there with his supermodel girlfriend, Keri.  All we ever wanted was to spend a week diving with a perfect supermodel.  As we know, diving is anything but glamorous, and to have a Victoria's Secret lingerie model amongst us was a sick feeling to say the least!  However, after spending only a few minutes with Keri, we changed our minds!  We wanted to hate her, but we just couldn't!  She was too much fun!!  She and Oliver dived with the neatest hoods.  Keri's had horns on the top, and Oliver's had a shark's fin.  Too cool!   One couple, Frank and Casey from Texas, were on their honeymoon.  Actually, they only live about 45 miles from us, so hopefully we can get together soon!   Nick and Carol came all the way from California.  When we arrived at the boat we met the rest of what was going to be a bunch of great divers to share this week with, Ron & Chris, Trace, Linda, Blake and Katie, Barry (no, not my ex-boyfriend, but rather a Richard Gere look alike!), DeDe, Bill & Amy, a father & daughter dive team, and Isabel and Andy who we would buddy with quite a bit.

        A little about the Nekton Pilot. First this is not your ordinary dive boat. This thing is huge! Because of its design as a dive boat and not a conversion some things are unique to the Nekton. The dive platform actually raises and lowers making getting on and off the boat very easy. The design of this boat is sort of a catamaran style, actually called SWACAT. It was explained to us but I won't go into details here, but this is by far the most stable boat I have ever been on. We made one crossing at night in eight to ten foot seas and thirty-five knot winds and I didn't even wake up. Most of the time you couldn't tell if the boat was moving at all. The main deck contains a huge lounge, dining area, several cabins and the galley. The lower deck has more cabins, the photo lab and the mechanicals. The upper deck has a huge sundeck complete with tons of hangers for wet gear, the often used Jacuzzi and wheelhouse. All the cabins a quite large and have private baths with gobs of hot water.  Maintenance and cleaning was perfect with the bed made as soon as you vacated in the morning and new towels each day. Towels were available on the dive deck to use after the hot shower, but don't even think about taking one of these to your cabin, LOL. Pink towels on the dive deck, blue and green ones in the cabins, nothing wet is allowed inside.  One thing that was a pleasant surprise to me was the use of steel 95 tanks.  For once, running out of air was not a concern of anybody's!  Dale came up from an eighty-two minute dive with eight hundred pounds of air left!

     The Nekton put out some awesome food. We didn't have a bad meal, and the snacks between dives almost made you not want to dive for fear you would miss out, well let's not get crazy ...... but they were mighty good.  Fresh hot cookies were brought around after the first morning dive! 

        Ok, that's enough of this stuff, on with the diving. The schedule was the same each day. Breakfast at 7:00, dive briefing at 8:00, dive deck opened until 11:45, lunch at 12:00, dive briefing at 1:00, dive deck opened until 5:45, dinner at 6:00, slide show at 7:00 dive deck opened at 8:00 until whenever. Water temp never changed, it sat at 80 degrees on every dive.  These are Dale's dive profiles, and as we all know, Dale doesn't miss ANY dives!  Dale, Rick, Sherrie and I all dove together, so we were able to share the same sights.  Sherrie and I didn't make every dive, but we came pretty close!

December 30     Dives 1 - 4
Dos Cocos and Long Caye Ridge
Depth = 114fsw     Total Bottom Time = 2 hours 42 minutes min.

   

Dos Cocos was the first dive. The vis was great at 75 plus and the wall was spectacular, covered with large beautiful sponges. Almost instantly an Eagle Ray appeared swimming towards us off the wall, an awesome site.  Rick followed him to 140 fsw. We also saw a huge puffer, one of many we would see this week. The next three dives were off Long Caye. The vis dropped a bit here but was still decent at 50 feet. Two Hawksbill Turtles, large Grouper, tons of Butterfly Fish, a Flamingo Tongue that turn back into it's shell and a huge Green Moray made us glad we had those big steel 95s strapped to our backs. Our first night dive was also here and it certainly did not disappoint us. Hermit crabs own this site, they were everywhere, even in the soft corals. Lobsters also were abundant and were quite large and unafraid. I have never seen so many Tiger paws than we saw in Belize.

December 31     Dives 5 - 10
Que Brada and Cathedral
Depth = 89fsw     Total Bottom Time = 5 hours 3 minutes min.

   
                click on photo for a larger image

Que Brada was full of Queen Triggers, but none attacked us like that one in Coz. Large Groupers swam the wall and lurked in cleaning stations. There were several spotted Drums, both juveniles and adults. The afternoon dives were on The Cathedral. Now it was 'Cudas, lots of Cudas, big Cudas. Yellowhead Jaw Fish were in the sand along with many Tilefish. A small Golden Eel looking terrified was seen buried in a coral head. Our Night dive was put off until 11:45 so we could be under water at Midnight. Most of us dived and at the stroke of midnight celebrated like Dick Clark in Times Square never dreamed of. After the celebration the dive was highlighted by a sleeping Filefish and Parrotfish of several varieties and a very cool Spotted Moray. At the end of the dive we adjourned to the Jacuzzi to drink the Champagne Rick had brought and welcome in 2002.  I've always wanted to ring in the new year underwater, and this year we did just that!

January 1     Dives 11 - 15
Rhianon's Reef and Dolphin Pass at Halfmoon Caye
Depth = 83fsw     Total Bottom Time = 4 hours 56 minutes min.

   

Rhianon's is a spectacular reef. Our first Stingray sighting was here. Stingrays in Belize are very timid, tough to get close. Some really cool tiny juvenile Drums a couple of Golden Eels and those ever present big Cudas and Groupers made this a great first dive of the new year.  Dolphin Pas proved to be the favorite of everyone on board. It seems every dive site has a resident fish. On Dolphin Pass it was Hogfish, bunches of them in different colors. More Groupers, a Big Eye, the cutest little Crab entertained us on this site. A Squirrel Fish with an Isopod attached to it's head made us all feel a little sad, but seeing several Smooth Trunkfish that  Sherrie & I call Tammy Fay Baker made us feel good again. The night dive on Dolphin's reveled a huge Puffer that I guess we blinded with our lights, he swam right up my arm and sat there for a while. We felt bad about blinding him and let him alone. Those beady eyed Red Night Shrimp were all over the place and I had quite a battle trying to get one on video, he won. At the end of the dive I spotted an Octopus, or should I say Biopus! This poor guy only had two arms, looks like he's had a tough life. 

January 2     Dives 16 - 21
Lucky Charm and Garcia's Backyard at Glovers Caye
Depth = 83fsw     Total Bottom Time = 5 hours 40 minutes min.

   

After a vote by divers the boat was moved over night to Glover's Reef. The Nekton hadn't dived here since Hurricane Iris so they didn't know what to expect, we made the right decision. The vis on Lucky Charm was over 100 feet and there was no hurricane damage at all. Green and Spotted Morays, Balloon Fish, A brightly colored reddish brown Hogfish, an adult Drum and tons of Parrotfish and Grouper made the two dive here awesome. For the afternoon dive we moved to Garcia's Backyard. We saw several of those skittish Stingrays here along with Juvenile Drums and every Butterfly fish you can think of. The night dive on Garcia's started out as a Crab and Lobster extravaganza. The lobsters were huge and almost aggressive, Dale had a staring contest with one of these bad boys, he was not going to run. But then he found Belize's answer to Cozumel's Splendid Toad Fish, the Spotted Toad Fish, endemic to Belize.

January 3     Dives 22 - 26
Inspiration Point and Enternity
Depth = 82fsw     Total Bottom Time = 4 hours 57 minutes min.

   

Many Spotted Drums, Yellow Tail Damsels, a Diamond Blenny, Rock Beauties, Lobsters, and two French Angels that were invading a very protective Damsel's farm made the morning dives stretch well over an hour each. The afternoon dives on Eternity were equally exciting with Lobsters, some of the tiniest juvenile Spotted Drums I've ever seen, two squid, and several Spotted Morays. The night dive was no slouch either. Dale called it the Big Crab Night on Eternity. A balloon fish came around, they learned our lesson with the Puffer so didn't blind this guy.  They also found a rather upset Spotted Moray that looked like he wante a piece of Rick.  Dale said that suddenly out of the dark came a huge Cuda!   He was a bit nervous having one approach him at night. But there was video to shoot so he got in behind him and followed him around hoping for a reoccurrence of the "Chester Attack", no such luck. Really this guy looked lost out there swimming very slowly and even crashing into the reef once.

January 4     Dives 27 - 29
Inspiration Point
Depth = 66fsw     Total Bottom Time = 2 hours 53 minutes min.

   

A cold front had moved into Belize bringing with it 35 knot winds. Our plan was to move the boat over night to Dolphin Pass for our last day of diving. All went well and we were moored when disaster hit. The Nekton is a big boat and not the most aerodynamic thing on the ocean. The wind was too strong and the mooring line snapped. Ok, no big deal we'll just move to another site, but when we arrived the vis was around ten feet, not good. So it was reluctantly back to Inspiration Point and what looked like the loss of a dive. But Captain Jon said no, we wouldn't miss a dive and told the DMs to keep the dive deck opened all day which would allow us to get in all the dives we planned. Since my flight home was at 2:11 PM the next day I was only able to do three dives. These weren't the best dives of the week but we did find a lot of Morays and Drums of all sizes.

        Several other divers were able to get in a full day's diving since they weren't leaving Belize until Sunday. The rest of us took the afternoon to clean gear, look at the photos and video we had shot during the week. After dinner there was the photo contest which Rick won for a very cool picture of a Brittlestar on a Vase Sponge. There were a lot of really nice photos taken. Several of the divers had taken a photo course from Ben and it showed they had paid attention in class. Then David, the Video Pro, showed his week's Nekton video. It was very funny and well produced. He caught everyone in some entertaining if not embarrassing moment. Then it was packing and try to get some sleep for our last night on the Nekton.

        After a continental breakfast Saturday morning it was time to depart the Nekton. Some went straight to the airport, some back to the Radisson and some went on the Mayan ruin tour.  Dale, Sherrie and I choose the tour. It was interesting and free. The guide certainly knew his subject and filled us in on everything we'd ever want know about the ruins and the Mayans. On the way back to town they dropped Dale off at the airport for his 2:00 flight back to the States.  Sherrie, Carol and I had lunch at the Smoky Mermaid again, where we met up with DeDe & Barry, Frank & Casey, Blake & Katie and Trace & Lin.  After a quick shopping trip, Sherrie, Carol, Nick and I were taken to the airport to catch our 4:40 flight to Dallas.  We met up with Bill & Amy and Oliver and Keri who were waiting to catch their flight to Houston at about the same time as our flight.  We were then told our flight was an hour late.  Bad news.  This would mean that Sherrie and I would be spending the night in Dallas, AGAIN!  That seems to be our tradition on past trips!  However, somehow they made up some time in the air, and we had 40 minutes to get our bags, clear customs, and change terminals to catch our connecting flight.  We took off like lightening, and grabbed a ride from one of the little trams and made it to our gate with 3 minutes to spare.  At that time, they must have thought we looked suspicious, because they searched our carryon bags, wanded us down, and then frisked us.   We told them to do whatever they wanted to do, but just don't let that plane leave without us!  We thought we were going to have to take a running leap to catch the plane, but the good news is that we made it!  Our bags didn't make it, nor did we expect them to!  But American Airlines delivered our bags to our homes the following afternoon. 

         The diving, while not spectacular, did keep us in the water for a long time, so we can't complain. The weather did have its effect on the choice of dive sites, maybe under better conditions we would have seen more. However, The Nekton did live up to their advertisements. The boat was rock solid, roomy, clean and comfortable. It has the largest rooms I've seen on a live aboard. The crew was great, making every effort to ensure us a good and safe time. The food, what can I say about the food? Fantastic! More than you wanted and the snacks and desserts were to die for. One more taco, shrimp, piece of prime rib or one more piece of that cheese cake and I might have skipped a dive! Captain Jon's slide shows taught us a thing or two about the reef and it's critters. While all of us are always busy looking for the "big stuff" on a dive, Captain Jon encouraged us to learn about the corals and to enjoy the small things while we await the "big stuff." I was amazed the change in what I looked for after one of these shows. The fellow divers on this trip were among the best I've had the privilege of sharing a boat with. Everyone was friendly and all great divers.   This was a great trip.  Considering the problems we had on our prior dive trip in August (the trip from Hell) we were just happy to be diving again!  We decided to compare the two trips and make a decision on which one to do again..... hummm, let's think it over: