ssflounder
Registered
All,
We spent new years in Abacos. Had a wonderfull family vacation and got to check a few species of fish off my list. BTW, I'm an avid fisherman. I thought I'd include a short debrief for anyone who is planning to go. We only went diving once and dove with Dive Abaco. As for the beautiful water with 80' vis vs. our normal 3-4' I was a little disappointed in the few amt. of choices and the whole dive experience. Here is a recap.
I reserved the day on the net. When we landed I noticed thier shop was next door to the first bar we stopped at for lunch. I walked in introduced myself and prepaid. The next day we were first to arrive and walked to the boat. A decent 35' boat suitable for 12 divers. Luckily, we only had 8 but with a few beginners. The first thing I noticed was they had 63cft tanks. Out of the 8 there was 1 taking advanced course with very little experience since he couldn't rig his kit or hook up his reg. Yikes (thinking stay away from that guy) there were 4 others that looked quite nervous also. When the owner/capt. got on board there was no safety breifing, head count, roll call, no clipboard with names??? Then, I remebered that we had to leave our c cards at the shop. The divemaster jumps on board releases the dock lines and off we go.
We dove 2 tanks on the abaco national park near turn island??? I didn't write it down. Just off the reef East of Marsh Harbor approx. 4 miles. Seemed like this was the only place they go. However, not important. The capt. then talks to the group as if no one has dove before and starts off with about 10 hand signals; saying your bicycling, trim out, control your bouancy, breath slower... by this time my wife and I are wondering whats going on??? Understanding he was trying to learn it was a little different than the predive breifing with azmiths and underwater orrientation I'm used to. Afterwards we agreed he was probably speaking to the common denomenator on board. Fine then he said to stay together!!! Ok so we rolled off and then sat for 20 minutes at 25' before the other 5 divers joined and another 5 minutes on my watch as he calmed or correctly weighted another. We then swam down to appox. 55' while my wife and I stayed about 20' away from the group but noticed they were finning, crashing, and silting each other the whole time.
We made the best we could out of the situation but what kind of pissed me off were his final words before we got in the water. Don't touch anything only leave bubbles... Well I glanced over at the crowd and saw the captain with his mask off and had it on a grouper!!! I had to get my wifes attention and show her what a dumbass.
We gathered under the boat and my wife and I still had 1400lbs of air so we went back down to the ledge and came back with 500lbs with 59min bt and got the look from everyone like we were holding them up. Same thing happened on the 2nd dive. $90.00 for 2 tanks is the usual rate but how about dive with 80's like every other resort.
Since this is the only outfit that seemed to have a shop/presence. I'd recommend them if you want to get wet. However, the only way I think they'd notice anyone was missing is if they found your cert card in the cash drawer at the end of the day. The vis, coral formations, and the few blacktips, turtles, eagle rays, normal carribean fish made it well worth the trip. Also, I know what not to do 100x over if I ever get into the scuba biz.
I'd be interested if anyone else has dove with this outfit to see if their experience was similar.
We spent new years in Abacos. Had a wonderfull family vacation and got to check a few species of fish off my list. BTW, I'm an avid fisherman. I thought I'd include a short debrief for anyone who is planning to go. We only went diving once and dove with Dive Abaco. As for the beautiful water with 80' vis vs. our normal 3-4' I was a little disappointed in the few amt. of choices and the whole dive experience. Here is a recap.
I reserved the day on the net. When we landed I noticed thier shop was next door to the first bar we stopped at for lunch. I walked in introduced myself and prepaid. The next day we were first to arrive and walked to the boat. A decent 35' boat suitable for 12 divers. Luckily, we only had 8 but with a few beginners. The first thing I noticed was they had 63cft tanks. Out of the 8 there was 1 taking advanced course with very little experience since he couldn't rig his kit or hook up his reg. Yikes (thinking stay away from that guy) there were 4 others that looked quite nervous also. When the owner/capt. got on board there was no safety breifing, head count, roll call, no clipboard with names??? Then, I remebered that we had to leave our c cards at the shop. The divemaster jumps on board releases the dock lines and off we go.
We dove 2 tanks on the abaco national park near turn island??? I didn't write it down. Just off the reef East of Marsh Harbor approx. 4 miles. Seemed like this was the only place they go. However, not important. The capt. then talks to the group as if no one has dove before and starts off with about 10 hand signals; saying your bicycling, trim out, control your bouancy, breath slower... by this time my wife and I are wondering whats going on??? Understanding he was trying to learn it was a little different than the predive breifing with azmiths and underwater orrientation I'm used to. Afterwards we agreed he was probably speaking to the common denomenator on board. Fine then he said to stay together!!! Ok so we rolled off and then sat for 20 minutes at 25' before the other 5 divers joined and another 5 minutes on my watch as he calmed or correctly weighted another. We then swam down to appox. 55' while my wife and I stayed about 20' away from the group but noticed they were finning, crashing, and silting each other the whole time.
We made the best we could out of the situation but what kind of pissed me off were his final words before we got in the water. Don't touch anything only leave bubbles... Well I glanced over at the crowd and saw the captain with his mask off and had it on a grouper!!! I had to get my wifes attention and show her what a dumbass.
We gathered under the boat and my wife and I still had 1400lbs of air so we went back down to the ledge and came back with 500lbs with 59min bt and got the look from everyone like we were holding them up. Same thing happened on the 2nd dive. $90.00 for 2 tanks is the usual rate but how about dive with 80's like every other resort.
Since this is the only outfit that seemed to have a shop/presence. I'd recommend them if you want to get wet. However, the only way I think they'd notice anyone was missing is if they found your cert card in the cash drawer at the end of the day. The vis, coral formations, and the few blacktips, turtles, eagle rays, normal carribean fish made it well worth the trip. Also, I know what not to do 100x over if I ever get into the scuba biz.
I'd be interested if anyone else has dove with this outfit to see if their experience was similar.
