Has anyone tried Garden Cove Dive Center

Anyone tried this outfit in Key Largo. How is the boat and service?

Yes we dove with them about 2 years ago & they did a real good job.

what do you mean by that, Is the boat on the bay side or ocean side. How was the boat, Captain, tanks. Did you do a three tanker? Thanks for the reply.

I've never used them, but I have a friend that thinks they are great. Unless you try them once, you will never know for sure.

Boat is on the oceanside.Shop on US1 bayside. MM106. Close to Carysfort and Elbow. Far from Duane and Molasses

boat is slowwwwwwwww. The last time I used them they did NOT have a way to fill tanks. They sent use to a dive shop that did not want to fill are doubles becuase they did not have the nitrox stickers on them. And when we got the tanks filled they said we took to long. and they cancelled the trip. Never again.

I dove with them on June 5, 2010 and June 19, 2010 and I can tell you, I will NEVER, EVER DIVE WITH THEM AGAIN!!!

The shop (specifically the manager Becky) is so dysfunctional they are an accident (and/or lawsuit) waiting to happen.

To be fair, I’ll give you the good, the so-so and the bad.

First the good:

Their captain (Mark) and dive master (Jenn) are fantastic. On the boat they run a first class op. They are very friendly, knowledgable, safety orientated and overall great people. Our first time out with them, Mark and Jenn came to the shop, met us, helped us analyze tanks, took our gear and had us follow them on the short drive to the marina. My wife and I were the only divers on boat on that trip (2 drops on the Grove and one shallow reef) and had a great day.

The boat seemed to run fine. It does look like it needs a coat of paint. The really great thing about the boat is it’s size. For a six pack it’s huge, it’s as big as many 12 pack boats. There is tons of space even with six divers on it. The boat has an ample swim platform and a sturdy easy to climb ladder. It’s got a fresh water shower and they provide water and melon and have a cooler to put anything else you want to bring.

One of the things that really impressed me was that they had a dive master on a six pack, something many of the others don’t do because technically it’s not required. Even though the dive master doesn’t go in the water with you, she did have gear set up in case of a need to assist in an emergency. I applaud Garden Cove for operating this way.

My wife and I had such a great time that when we got home we rounded up 4 friends to take over the boat for her birthday on June 19.

Now the so-so:

A couple days after calling to reserve the next dive we got our credit card statement showing that Garden Cove double charged us for the June 5 dive. We called the shop and left a message on their answering machine stating the issue and requesting a call back. Never got a call back. We decided that we would deal with it when we went back on the 19th. I had also emailed the shop after the first dive telling them how much we enjoyed our trip and got no response. While this is not a deal breaker for me, a, “hey, thanks for the note we look forward to seeing you again,” response might have been nice. The non response on either item says to me that they don’t give a sh*t about customer service.

They did fix our double charge issue when we were there on the 19th although we haven’t gotten the statement yet so it remains to be seen if it was done right.


Now the bad:

We showed up at the shop and were greeted by Becky (there was a different girl (who was very nice and organized) the first time we were there). Becky was very pleasant but seemed scattered, she gave us the release forms to sign, asked for our cert. cards and asked who was diving nitrox. We were all on nitrox for the two deeper dives then air for the shallow. Becky pointed to a bunch of tanks and said, “nitrox is there and air tanks are over here.” I asked her where their analyzer is and her response was, “you don’t need to analyze, they’re all nitrox.” I was shocked by the response and asked, “what blend are they?” Becky’s response, “they’re nitrox.” The tanks had no labels other than nitrox bands and hydro stickers. I asked who and how they were filled and she said, “we have the the tanks filled by another shop and they’re all nitrox.” At this point captain Mark and dive master Jenn arrived and I pulled Jenn aside and expressed my concern about analyzing. Her response was, “absolutely, you have to analyze and make sure you take 32% tanks.” Jenn got out the analyzer. We started analyzing tanks and found one in the bunch we were planning on taking that was 36%. Now using a PO2 of 1.6 the MOD for 32% is 132 and 36% is 113. We were diving the Duane. The deck of the Duane is about 105 ft.. Personally, I don’t like or think it’s safe to dive within 10 ft. of my MOD.

Had I/we listened to Becky and not questioned her, someone might be dead. This woman clearly does not understand nitrox diving and shouldn’t be handing out nitrox tanks.

Also, during the analyzing we discovered that many of the tanks didn’t have yoke adapters. Not a major deal but it’s nice to not have to change them from one tank to another on the water.

On the ride out to the wreck, we were talking with each other and realized that we were all charged different rates by a couple of bucks. Yet, we all bought the same thing. WTF?

We get to the Duane, jumped in and had a great dive. When we got back on board for our surface interval, we were informed that both Becky and Larry (the owner of the shop) had called the boat and that we couldn’t do another drop on the Duane because two of our group were not AOW and we had to go to a shallower site.

I accept the shop’s policy of requiring AOW for the Duane (plus my wife and I are AOW so we weren’t the problem). However, when we called to reserve we weren’t told this. Had we been told this, we would have made other arrangements. At the shop we gave our cards to Becky. She saw all of our levels of cert.. There seemed to be no issue at that point.

One of our friends diving with us is dive master cert. with current insurance. It was actually his friends that were only OW. We talked to captain Mark and showed him the dive masters info.. Mark called the shop asking if this would be acceptable to drop on the Duane again as the OW divers were with a dive master but was told no.

So we went and did two mediocre shallow dives. I was bummed as I shoot a lot of video and, especially on wrecks, like to try to do the same dive twice to gather as much footage as possible. Also, we had 90+ vis. and great sea life on the Duane and only 40-50 on the shallower reefs. We made the best of it.

Double charging us for our first trip, handing out nitrox tanks without understanding of diving nitrox, charging everyone different rates and not checking our cards properly for the shop’s policies is just sloppy, dysfunctional and potentially dangerous. We found out first hand why locals refer to them as Garbage Cove Dive Center.

Luckily, their sloppiness has only cost them six customers and not somebodies’ life.

As is with all diving, use Garden Cove at your own risk.

Thanks for reading.

--JL


A note about our diving experience: We’re both AOW and nitrox, certified 6 years ago. I dive ~100 times per year and my wife ~50. Until now, we are warm water divers. We’ve dove all over the Caribbean. We live in south FL and dive regularly between Jupiter and Key West. We have dive ops. we love and some we don’t love so much. With the exception of Garden Cove, all the ops. we don’t like has to do with them not matching our dive style as opposed to being a poor operation. I’ve never felt compelled to share a negative experience about a dive op. on the internet before.

This is why I put this question out there and sort of expected this response. Thanks for the detailed response.

I wouldn't hold the shop completely accountable for Becky. I know for a fact she has not been there very long.

Never went out with them but tried a few times. Being a loner, unless a shop already has at least one other customer, I'm SOL. Testing the waters one day, three, four years ago, I spoke with Larry (I think it was). Based on our chat I wanted to give 'em a try. First attempt I stopped at the shop and spoke with a women who said, "Sure, but you'll need to hire a guide (for a figure Obama would've approved of - well, not ALL that bad) as we've no other divers for that trip." I declined. I would have been looking for a, "We're not going out since we don't have (two?) divers, but try XXXX; they usually have a trip." (I've heard that before in the Keys, a few times. Makes me think the shop is not out for the one-time rape.) I realize they can't be turning away business but a more altruistic (and forward thinking) response would've served this situation better. A few months later I tried again. Young fella, maybe 17, minding the store. "Ya got anything going out tomorrow?" "No." How's about the next day." "No." "Hey, DUDE, great talking with ya. Bye."
Store hours kinda sparse to my way of thinking. (My idea of planning ahead is giving the barkeep a nod half way through my martini.) And their boat looks like a POS. (No big deal.) And has had problems in the past (but whose hasn't?).
But...having said all these bad things about them I hope to give 'em a shot in the next few days, just to see if I'm FOS or they are.