Diving Stuart Cove's Nassau Bahamas

[Muggsy]

Just got back from 2 dives at Stuarts Cove in Nassau Bahamas. 1st dive was Shark Wall South - 60-100 ft. depth. 100+ft. vis. Nice wall diverse coral, schools of fish diverse fish. Grouper, Jacks, yellowtail Snappers. 3 gorgeous Reef Sharks. Then our
2nd dive was Southwest Reef. Great variation in height and size of the coral heads. Lots of large schooling Chubs. Huge Schoolmaster, Leafy Lettuce (worms), great site shallow and long. Water temps were around 75 degrees. Weather here is sunny, warm and very relaxing. We are diving this afternoon on their signature "Shark dive" should be a blast! If anyone wants to join us and you are around we will also be diving Thursday afternoon and hopefully Friday evening.
I have been diving with a lot of dive operations and many places in the world and I have to say Stuart, Michelle and their staff are impeccable. They take care of your every whim and need. They have multiple services and incredible and diverse diving and sites.
Please join us if you can, but if not and you have not been here I definatley would put this on your list of dive vacations you will want to take.

 

[deepstops]

I couldn't agree more Michelle, they run a very good and well organized operation considering they run up to seven different boats. And I hear a lot of people dis'ing the diving in Nassau but I think it's pretty good.

I especially liked how they've got the pics of the dives you just did posted in the shop before you've even got your gear of their boat.

 

[sharkbaitDAN]

Good to see you enjoyed your dives today, it was great meeting you on the boat today. Hope to dive with you some more while you're down here.

 

[NJMike]

Muggsy, did you wear a suit in the 74 deg water? If so, what thickness? Did most people wear a suit?

 

[Muggsy]

Muggsy, did you wear a suit in the 74 deg water? If so, what thickness? Did most people wear a suit?

I wore a 5mm and still froze. we did 4 dives yesterday. gotta run diving again now. Don't know which 2 dives but will post after them. Wanna tell everyone about the shark dives yesterday afternoon.! What a blast!

 

[Muggsy]

The next 2 dives with Stuart Cove's was the Sea Viking, and then Ray of Hope.
The Sea Viking we started off going over the wall. Beautiful coral with an array of relief. Amazing diverse colors of coral and fish. Multiple large Grouper, Snappers and beautiful sea fans. Then after the wall we worked our way up and over to the Sea Viking. What a nice wreck. Nice wide open, and water clarity was great so I could even get a shot of the entire wreck. Very nice dive being able to see a beautiful reef and then being able to enjoy a nice wreck.
Ray of Hope-
This dive averages in about 60ft. water. This wreck has been in multiple movies and I can see why. On descent we encountered 5 gorgeous Reef Sharks. On the bow of the wreck was a nice school of Jacks. The wreck is very simple but so much nice life on it. We had a nice size Golden Tail eel free swimming on the side of the wreck. There were 5 huge Lionfish swimming inside the haul. A 2 1/2 ft. Grouper inside the wheelhouse. 2 more nice sized Lionfish with a school of juvenile blue Chromis swimming around them. And all the while the 5 beautiful Reef Sharks would be swimming around and coming up to us checking out what we were doing. Just incredible.
I can see why so many people come to the Bahamas and especially to Stuart Cove's in Nassau. This place should definitely be on everyone's dive list of places to visit. I hate to sound like a broken record, but their service, staff and the dive spots are really hard to beat. I would love to name everyone who helped out, but 20 different staff personally helped us. Thank you to all the amazing staff at Stuart Cove's for your hard work that made for a truly great dive vacation.

 

[Muggsy]

Shark feed dive- This should be on everyone’s list of dives to do!
1st dive: You do both 1st and the feed dive, in the same place. The first dive you jump in and there are Reef Sharks all around. Great sight to see. We swam over the reef and down over the wall. Swam against the current on the wall enjoy the beautiful relief of the wall. Very nice corals, large Groupers, Snappers, and the Reef Sharks would come and swim by and check us out. Great video footage. We then came back up the wall and drifted and swam around the top of the reef until returning to the boat. We then had a comfortable surface interval with an incredibly thorough dive briefing telling us about the second dive for the shark feeding.
2nd dive Shark feed dive:
We jump in and descend to the bottom on a very large area of pure white sand. We are put in a large circle with rocks for us to straddle, and hold on to so we are more stable in the water. Once everyone is situated, we look up and down comes the DM who is feeding the sharks. He is in a Neptunic shark suit and has a spear to pull the chum(Mahi Mahi) out of the secured box he has with him. Immediately sharks come swarming in around him and in the middle of our circle. The DM descends into the middle of the circle and proceeds to take out and let some chum out of the box. The sharks frantically go for the food, they are swimming around faster and faster. You can feel them come directly next to you, in front of you and over you. It truly is an amazing feeling. The sharks don’t care about the divers, they only want the food. My 63 year old mother came on the dive and she said she was never scared once. To be that close and up personal with sharks is something everyone should experience. They do not want to hurt, they only want to investigate and feed, on their food, fish, lobster, and other marine life. The pictures and DVD’s the photo lab puts together are definitely worth getting. Just to have someone taking pictures of you with the sharks is something you should show everyone. I will be working on getting those up this weekend. I definitely recommend these dives. I hope to hear more dive stories from everyone if you have done these dives.

 

[wiseguy1]

I am afraid I have to disagree with Michelle’s enthusiasm for Stuart Coves. We had planned to dive with them for 6 dives as a tune up for the AquaCat (BTW, the AquaCat was amazing!) I was so disappointed with Stuarts, that I closed our tab after 2 dives. While I felt the Dive sites were nice (we dove the DC-3 and Thunderball), the operation failed to warrant a second visit. The check-in process was chaotic. The boat assignment was unclear. Divers on our boat were told they had to move to another boat after they had already set up their gear because the boat was over crowded (shouldn’t this have been addressed when assigning divers to the boat?) The bucket was too small for a DSLR camera rig and requests for accommodations for a larger camera were ignored. The steering on the boat went out half way to the first dive site. Once on site the dive briefing was short on site info and long on making sure that everyone knew that they had to be back on the boat after a 35 minute dive. There was only one dive master in the water for 18 divers. Fortunately our group was comprised mainly of instructors and dive masters. The second dive was extended to 40 minutes (provided you were able to get into the water the moment the boat stopped. Not one person in our group came up with less than 1700 PSI. Once back at the dock, the tide had dropped so much that a nearly 3 foot step up was necessary to exit the boat. The staff seemed to be more concerned about getting the tanks swapped out then helping the customers. The divers were left to helping each other off the boat (one of the wonderful things about the diving community is the willingness of divers to pitch in and help one another.) I observed the staff actually tossing the tanks around while divers were still on the boat and potentially in the line of fire. Catching the shuttle back to our hotel proved to challenging as no one could say when it would be arriving or departing.
Pros of our experience: Good accounting of divers as they returned to the boat, dive briefing included vhf info, oxygen and first aid location. Photos were available immediately after the dive. Good selection of Stuart Cove merchandise.
Cons of our experience: general chaotic nature the check in-boarding process. Concerns about the reliability of the boat and procedures for re-tanking the boat. The “SCUBA Mill” feeling the operation exuded.

One very positive note: There was a diver there who was mentally challenged. The care and friendliness that the staff exercised with him was heart warming.

 

[sra12574]

Does anyone know if you can buy a cd of pics from your dives . I'm going next week . I saw that you could order the pics online but didnt see the option for a cd of all your images as a package?

 

[george w]

My wife and I dove with Stuarts Cove in Feb. They are a great dive op. As said above, they go out of there way to make sure you have a great time. The shark dive with them are amazing. The staff could not be nicer and more helpful and friendly. The best dive op we ever dove with.