Trip complete! Here's a quick review.
West Side Scuba was awesome. Peter picked us up right on time in the roundabout just outside the cruise terminal. (Interestingly, Customs required me to get a form allowing us to take our wheeled scuba gear bag out of the terminal... that's never happened before, and nobody asked for a form to bring the bag back into the terminal!) Peter's crew got the boat ready, and set up gear for our kids while we took care of our own gear setup.
First dive was on a large wreck whose name I missed and have not been able to find online. It was VERY good. This was the first penetration dive that either of our kids had done and our DM, "RJ", handled it perfectly. Full penetration, explored the length of the ship, plenty of dwell time inside. We spent the entire first tank on that one wreck.
Besides our four, we had two others in our dive group and they didn't follow RJ's instructions very well. He very properly scolded them once we surfaced, and on the next dive they were magically absent from RJ's group! {grin} My wife and our son's GF felt a bit queasy from the somewhat rough surface conditions so they bowed out of the second dive. That left just the three of us. I think RJ watched everyone on the first dive and realized our group was obedient and respectful. RJ then took us aside and said "It's just the three of us, so we're going to go see some STUFF."
And MAN did RJ deliver! We went to Carlisle Marine Park and weren't down more than 90 seconds before RJ had found our first seahorse (ever). Large rays, barracuda, huge lobsters, huge sea slugs, not to mention five (5) separate wrecks (!!!) kept us busy for a full 60 minutes underwater. We penetrated another wreck. We saw everything, did everything. RJ was absolutely amazing, adjusting his speed and manners to how we handled ourselves as we spent varying amounts of time on different things.
We saw not one, but TWO more seahorses (total of three!) along the way. When we surfaced, one of the other divemasters said "I've been diving here for years and never seen a single seahorse, then you come here and see THREE in one day?!?"
My Olympus TG-6 got a serious workout, burning through its entire battery in one dive (all stills, no video).
This trip to Barbados was quite different from last time. This is the first time we've dived off the southern coast, which is where the famous wrecks are located. Things are sandy and more shallow. Our previous diving has been up the west coast of the island which has well developed coral reefs with lots of depth variations. I'm glad we chose to go south this time, as I was completely unaware of how diverse the different areas are.
Back on topic: I strongly recommend WSSC, Peter, and especially RJ as your divemaster. They'll be my first call next time we're here!