Which dive op to use in Barbados for scuba

[snoozcroozr]

Hi

 

Will port for 1 day in Barbados on Sunday Dec 6 from 7am to 3pm. I was wondering which dive shop caters less to the novice divers. I know it sounds like an oxymoron, cruise ship and advanced divers, but we prefer not to be stuck on boats where we have to go to easy sites just because there are one or two non-advanced divers, or have everybody ascend after 30 minutes.

 

I would have picked Eco Dive, but they do open on sundays. The other dive shops, West Side, The Dive Shop Barbados and Rogers Scuba Shack, all require walking fully geared in the 3-4ft of water from the beach, no ladder to climb up, and some we get driven to a public beach, while others we have to bring our own tank back to swap between dives. Carrying a heavy camera setup on top of the full gear (in my own cooler bag full of water) would reallly be pushing how much I am carrying. Plus reading the reviews on them, there are always comments of short bottom time, depth limit due to type of divers onboard, etc.

 

So of those 3 dive ops I mentioned, which would be the best match for my need?

 

Thanks.

[omeinv]

I strongly recommend West Side Scuba Center. They picked us up at the pier (and returned us after the diving), and we dove the Stavaron Akita as our first dive. As an instructor I was possibly granted some latitude others may not have been, but we went to the prop which is right at 130 feet. Other divers stayed nearer the bow. There was no issue with short bottom times.

 

As a second dive we went to Carlisle Bay, which is a lot of fun, even though it's quite shallow. Our bottom time there was over one hour.

 

Peter there was very easy to set everything up with. We started our trip at the launch dock, although we ended at the beach at Carlisle Bay, so we had to wade in from the boat, but it was really easy. I also recall the only reason we did this is because we wanted to go in the truck to the dive shop, rather than return to the slip on the boat.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

[snoozcroozr]

I hope West Side Scuba pick us up at the pier, since some of the reviews says they don't have a shop by the water, so they drive the divers to the public beach and everybody hauls their gears and tank from the parking lot, across the beach and into 3-4' of water. They highlight Stavronikita prominently on their website, but says its depends on if they have enough passengers.

 

Anyway, I booked with them so I hope for the best.

[snoozcroozr]

I went with West Side Scuba. Everybody was very helpful. They had a lionfish derby going on so we had to drop off/pick up additional divers. There were 2 DM in the group, and were very adamant on keeping the group together. I spotted a flying gurnard and wandered back trying to get some good pictures (really hard as it is consantly trying to evade me) but was constantly being quacked by the rear DM to not fall behind. They were spearing lionfish here and there, and not letting us a chance to get pictures of it, then they discovered a nest of them lingering around a fringe reef, they went spearing the small ones so I went to try to get some pix of a large one before they spear it, but before you know it, the 2 DM quacked their quackers full blast and told everybody to stay clear of that reef while they cull all lionfish hiding there. So everybody just wandered off and did their own thing until they were finished. Too bad there were no flying gurnard around.

 

The prior dive on the Stavaron, they were herding the group too, but I lingered behind with no issue since they just make a back and forth path on the upper deck. They didn't take anyone to the prop. I think it is likely due to another person on my the cruise ship having only a few OW dives. He so happened dived on every port I dove, and is likely the reason our 2nd dive in St Lucia was a beach dive that reached a max depth of 15ft (which we saw many interesting things, but w/o my camera due to dead batteries), I felt like I was missing a limb on the dive.

 

West Side Scuba, as many ops that does cruise ship dives and/or rental gears, seems to do all the tank changes for you. We usually do all the BC /tank changes, but we let them do it. They didn't know how to do my wife's special reg setup with the octo on the other side, and also unvelcro'd the power inflator holder during the change, thus losing her Hollis titanium line cutter that was held by that velcro loop (and the loop velcroing itself to the line cutter's sheath, thus for it to fall off, it has to be pulled off, intentionally or accidentally after undoing the velcro). This happened also in Tortola, where they mounted the 1st stage upside down, and unvelcro'd the inflator hose, but the line cutter did not fall off.

 

I don't know what's their undoing the low pressure inflator's velcro. Whenever I swap tanks, I never undo the velcro, and I don't detach the hoses from the BC, thus will never lose how the 1st stage attaches to the tank.