Barbados Diving Operators Mini-Review

[RICHinNC]

Soberrobot....how did your trip go?

 

[AmyNYC]

For anyone looking to dive in Barbados I would absolutely recommend Barbados Blue. We just returned from our trip today and while in Barbados we did the Carlisle Bay wrecks and a couple of reefs with BB for a total of 3 dives. I wanted to make 2 comments - 1, there was not a group bottom time. There was plenty of time to check out marine life, and those who used their air more efficiently had more time to investigate. 2 - these guys are amazing at making everyone feel comfortable and are professional, but also tons of fun with a great sense of humor. If you are a confident, experienced diver you will have a blast interacting with these guys, and if you are new diver or a someone who needs a little extra confidence these guys will make sure you get the TLC you need to have a great safe dive. My sister is the latter type of diver and BB went out of their way to make sure she left with the best possible dive experience. For November they are offering a rusty diver refresher free with any dive. Great people, awesome time. Would absolutely dive with them again.

 

[Dive Shop Barbados]

I'm sorry you thought that "we did'nt know where we wanted to go", We were not trying to be vague. What we do is check on the day to see who is diving with us, where they have been and try not to repeat the dive sites they have already been to.
If someone has a specific request or does not want to do a particular site we always try to accommodate.

My wife & I just spent a week on Barbados (April 2009), went diving with 3 different outfits & spoke with a couple more. Here are our comments on what we learnt, in the hope it's perhaps useful for others planning on diving there.

Our first couple of dives were with Barbados Blue, the largest dive operator on the island and frequently referred to in these forums. They operate out of the Hilton hotel. The dives were Friars Craig (a broken up wreck & surrounding reef) and Carlisle Bay (a bunch of wrecks). Both are excellent dives. Barbados Blue has some decent equipment & nice folks. However our big complaint with them, and the reason we would NOT recommend them or dive with them again, is because they run timed dives. With Barbados Blue you get a 35 to 40 minute dive; that's it. For example, on our second dive, with lots of great stuff to see, lots of bottom time remaining, etc, we had to surface while still having 1400 PSI. Very annoying & frustrating. Talking with others on the island, Barbados Blue has a reputation for this: short timed dives, and all their dives are kick kick kick - very difficult to slow down to look at things, take photos, etc. Unless you're someone who sucks a tank dry in 30 minutes, I'd suggest avoiding this outfit.
Dive Barbados Blue - Scuba and Snorkel with PADI’s Best at the Hilton

Our next couple of dives were with Reefers & Wreckers, at the northern end of the island. We specifically wanted to dive a wreck called the Pamir, and a second dive of their choosing (turned out to be a reef called Brightledge). Both were excellent dives. We really liked this outfit. Decent gear, really pleasant relaxed & very helpful folks, and no imposed restrictions. In the case of the Pamir dive, we followed their divemaster around as he gave us a tour of the wreck & nearby "yellow submarine", then afterwards with plenty of air remaining the two of us simply wandered around the wreck looking at things & taking photos until our air was up. Others who'd dived the wreck before just buddied up & did their own thing. To my way of thinking, this is how it should be, and we enjoyed it. We'd very happily dive with these folks again.
Welcome | Reefers & Wreckers Dive Shop Barbados

Our final dive was with an outfit called Underwater Barbados. We wanted to do another dive in Carlisle Bay (a full dive, not a truncated Barbados Blue version) and actually had a tough time finding a dive operator because 4 (four!) cruise ships had pulled in & suddenly the island was flooded with people. By a combination of luck & circumstance we ended up with Michael from Underwater Barbados, joining him as he & his crew took a boatload of cruiseship passengers snorkelling. Michael used to do a lot of diving, running lots of people through, but found that work very tiring & now predominantly runs groups of snorkellers, with only an occasional few divers. We had a very enjoyable hour underwater with Michael exploring the wrecks & he's someone else we would happily dive with again.
Underwater Barbados

Aside from the outfits listed above, we also spoke with a couple of others.

"Eco Divers" we really liked, and we chatted with them a couple of times. A small outfit, they run a max of 5 divers at a time, and have a relaxed easy-going attitude. No timed dives, and they cater to photographers (the fellow who runs the shop is a keen photographer), so the pace is relaxed & patient. We would have liked to dive with them, but they were closing up shop for a week to go diving themselves on St Lucia when we spoke with them.
Barbados Diving: Eco Dive Barbados

"The Dive Shop" we spoke to a couple of times, and they've been recommended on these forums, but we just couldn't make anything happen with them. The big problem was that we'd ask the simple question, "Where are you planning on diving tomorrow?" and they'd always answer, "We don't know". What these folks wanted us to do was to sign up with them, pay our money, get on board the boat, and then they'd decide where they would go diving. Well that didn't really didn't appeal to us. We didn't want to commit our day & our money to get on a boat which could then potentially decide to do dives we didn't want to do (either because they'd be outside our abilities, or because we'd just done those dives the day before). We understand that plans can change because of conditions, but at least start with a plan, and these folks never seemed to have a clue.
The Dive Shop Ltd. - SCUBA DIVING IN BARBADOS!

That's it. We had a great time on Barbados. I hope this helps anyone else thinking about diving there.

 

[bradshsi]

I was just in Barbados last week and was able to do 3 dives with http://www.rogers-scubashack.com.bb

They are based out of Bridgetown (slightly to the east of the center of it).

Overall the diving was pretty decent and I was able to see a good variety of sea life. To my mind the pros and cons were:


Pros

Roger and staff have thousands of dives worth of experience. I got the impression that nothing could peturb them.

They're really friendly personable guys.

They limit the group size to 8 or less.

They are certainly not schedule driven when it comes to the dives.


Cons:

Safety briefings could have been better and have insisted on a mandatory safety stop.

Somewhat laid back approach to buddy pairing/briefing. Basically on 2 of the dives my instabuddy just kept trying to wander off (after telling me that he stopped logging dives at 100 since there was nothing more he could learn, then giving me a blank look when I asked him what Rock Bottom value we would set for the dive). But to be fair that's not in their control.

Questionable rental equipment. I saw two equipment failures on the 3 dives (one LP inflator leak and one SPG hose fitting leak). Maybe they were just unlucky, but it seems a little too frequent for my liking.

 

[mustang_5l]

I dove with The Dive Shop last week. Very nice and professional!