Mayaguana

We flew into Provo in the Turks and Caicos to board the Nekton Rorqual on the first cruise to Mayaguana. 16 divers were aboard, all but one was a repeat customer. Some were old friends, and the rest are new friends. The next morning we cleared Bahamas customs and started diving.
Most sites here remind me of Cozumel with the vis, wall, sand chutes and swim thrus but without the current. There was little to no current all week, your results might vary. The typical site was a wall starting at 55' dropping to a shelf at 120' and then dropping into an abyss. Above the wall was a narrow reef, then sand with lots of garden eels and patch reefs where you found the critters. The wall looked healthy, the patch reefs not so much showing storm damage and algae over growth. There was little evidence of hurricane damage with big sponges and fan coral everywhere.
Fish life seemed a little sparse to me but I'm an old diver and it's never as good as the old days. Much like Coz the walls are beautiful but most of the marine life is up in the patch reefs, the shallower you go the better it got. Also, more Lionfish on the wall and top, less in the shallows. Could that be connected?!
Because this is a new itinerary there are few moorings so a lot of live boat dives but not really drift dives since there usually wasn't any current. Many of the sites are as yet unnamed so it's hard to give you a list of must sees but Goliath grotto was 2nd on my list, the first was marked but unnamed as yet.
Dress warm, in February air temps were usually in the sixties to seventies and the water was 74 so hot showers and into the hot tub became the norm. Bring warm clothes for the SI. By May things should start warming up.
The Nekton's are great to dive from and have square roomy rooms which are rare on most liveaboards, the Pilot is in for refit and the Rorqual should be, it's looking worn, rusty, soot covered and there is a reef growing in a gap near the props complete with juvenile squirrel fish. The ice maker wasn't working, the hot table wasn't and the nitrox level which started at 28% kept getting lower all week.
Getting to PLS can be an expensive issue, from the NE look at flying to Dallas DFW and then to PLS, it was quicker and cheaper for me than flying down the east coast. PLS is serviced by US Air, American Airlines, Delta and WestJet.
The Nekton trip packet says not to book a flight leaving before noon but this may have changed as we were asked to be off the boat by 7am but in Nekton/island time that became 8am and there's not a lot to do at PLS for six hours so have a plan B. Cab fare between south dock and PLS ranged from $8 to $13 and BTW, the Turks & Caicos uses the US dollar, sorry Canada!