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Some years ago I dove the Francesca di Rimini from Biograd with a Dive Center owned by a Dutch guy. He wasn't that young anymore.
Had excellent staff. Does anyone know the name of the DC and if it still exists?
Hi!
The diving centre you are talking about can't be anything but Bougainville Diving, situated on Kumenat beach on the outskirts of the city centre. This diving centre was run by a great dutch guy named Ger Ten Velden, unfortunately he has now retired and the dive shop has for the two last years been run by an Austrian and changed a lot. I did both my OWD and AOWD there and dived with them for several seasons, but this year I went elsewhere for my diving.
None of the staff working there over the last 8-10 years are left, only people without knowledge about the area. Fortunately for us that spend a lot of time in the area his old staff are now working on establishing their own dive shop.. Until then if you want to experience more diving in the area I can recommend what is called Boran Diving. Small scale, experienced guy with a nice diving boat. If I'm not mistaken he has taken on one of the most experienced dive guides that used to work at Bougainville.
Yes I found them myself. I communicated with the new Austrian owner already (I am Austrian myself). To keep it friendly: Yes they changed a lot. It is now PADI standard. After some emails, I decided to not go there. (I had schedule for being 1 week in Europe and thought of making it 2 weeks and go there for say 7-10 days....).
Do you have any contact informations about the Boran or the old dive guides. They were all excellent.
thx