Diving Stuart Cove's Nassau Bahamas

[Dantheengineer]

Just a local that dives alot!
The only other real choice is Bahama divers (or Paradise Charters if they'll answer). I havent dived with them BD for about two years. They are, traditionally, cheaper than coves and nearer to Nassau town/ Paradise Island etc. There are some great sites to the North East, but the weather comes from there. A look on Wing guru.com before your dive days might indicate where the good diving is. South West (Coves) is Lee side of the island. You can get shelter to the North East from the many small islands and cays, just not much and only at shallow sites as far as i'm experienced.
If you do dive with both companies, a balanced "review" here would be enjoyed!
Either way, i'm sure you'll have a blast!

 

[myalibi]

I did a dive with Bahama Divers in June. I was not impressed. The site was a shipwreck just around the bend from where the cruise ships dock. The gear was ok, but there was no communication. We were in the store waiting to find out what we needed to do, and nobody ever told us that the boat was getting ready to leave. I set up my gear, they set up my buddy's (she's high maintenance, and could probably get someone to wear her gear and hold her regulator for her underwater if she batted her eyelashes at them) Once in the water, the divemaster took the ones for discover scuba and left us on our own. No big deal, but they also never raised a dive flag and left nobody on the boat. There was lots of traffic in that channel.

I would like to try the shark dive with Stuart Cove though. We are headed back to Nassau in April via cruise (yuk) but hope to get a dive in.

 

[farsidefan1]

I spent 4 days diving with Stuart Coves operation in August 2007. The water was like glass. We dove both morning and afternoon. Well run although bigger crowds in the morning. I thought they did a good job on predive briefings. I did feel like there were a lot of people to process but once on the boats we had a very good experience. I saw more "bigger stuff" (sharks big lionfish, groupers etc) than seems the norm for Bonaire, Roatan, Coz. Not that it is better, just more big stuff. At any rate Stuart Coves provides a good dive experience (unless you get on a "cursed boat" like one of the earlier posters). I can't compare as my only other trip to the Bahamas was to Grand Bahama with Sun Oddysey - also in August the next yr and we mostly watched a succession of hurricanes blast the ocean. We got in a shark dive and dove in the canal (6 ft. vis). We talked Sun Odyssey into taking us out of the canal and on the ocean. He smiled and said, if you want it.... He laughed his butt off - in a nice way - as we quickly agreed it was a no dive day (but after 3 days in the hotel we were desperate) which is how we ended up doing a canal dive.

 

[njcfm]

thank you all for the advice..

we leave this week.. hopefully the weather holds up and we get do to a few days of diving..

planning on booking tonight/tom.. not sure which day would be best thurs or friday as both days have cruise ships in port..

turns out we won't have our own equipment either so we will have to rent. thank you all for the advice and reviews, i'll be sure to give a detailed one when we get back to the frozen state of NJ.

 

[ItsBruce]

I'm posting to report on my recent dive with Stuart Cove's. I did the dive while on a cruise to Nassau. Beforehand, I confirmed Stuart Cove's was the cruise line's selected operator and checked SB for reports. I was a bit concerned by some of the reports of short, hurried dives. I spoke with Stuart Cove's management and was told that the first dive would be limited to about 35 minutes but that we could dive to 80 feet. I figured I could live with that and signed up.

I was pretty happy with the operation, though I had to try 3 tanks before finding one that was "full." We had about 20 divers on our boat and they all seemed to know how to set up their own gear (except for one who was then under instruction).

The dive spots were good and we were mostly left to do our own dives (subject to the stated limits).

In returning to the "cove," our skipper demonstrated one of the best pieces of boat handling I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing.

My only real objection is to the company's name. It is mis-punctuated. There should not be an apostrophe or an "s" at the end.

 

[David_57]

35 minutes sucks big time especially for what they charge hope this is not the case when I am there next month, Paradise Divers Cozumel let me stay down for a min 50 minutes longest dive was 70 minutes they did not make to much of a fuss as long as you came up with 500 psi.

 

[H2O Gal]

My only real objection is to the company's name. It is mis-punctuated. There should not be an apostrophe or an "s" at the end.

Why shouldn't it be? The company is owned and operated by a man named Stuart Cove. So it's Stuart Cove's dive business, not a geographical location.

 

[Mike Sea Hunt Fan]

I have gone with Stuart Cove’s several times over the last 3 years at various times of the year and have usually had a good experience. They have a very efficient land operation, you can call the day before and get on a boat, but once you leave the dock it becomes the typical cattle drive. Last week it was very rough, 4 - 6 ft seas, they only went a couple of miles from the dock. ( I believe it would have been calmer further around the end of the island ) I did not even consider leaving my camera in the camera barrel during the boat ride; the cameras that were in it were sloshing around like they were in a washing machine! They really need to start adapting to the increased number and size ( value ) of cameras taken on any given boat trip. The boat had at least 20 divers with one guide for 16 of us with all levels of experience. Visibility was only 50 - 60 feet, so in order to keep in sight of the guide we were swimming on top of each other. Lately, it seems like they are fixated on “wreck diving” which is just a bunch of junk piles to me. Give me a nice wall or coral garden anytime and I am like a kid in a candy store! At one point they had two boats over the same wreck at the same time and it was total grid lock! It was almost impossible to take a picture without a stranger in it. Bottom line is, if the winds are up the diving gets poor.

I will be checking out Bahama Diver’s next time I go to Nassau but availability looks more limited for short notice boat space.

 

[widget]

Yeah, I have to say I really cant fault Stuart Coves operation. I have dived there a number of times since 1994 and never had reason to feel aggrieved.

I think you have to accept them for what they are, "a well run mass market operation" who are masters at what they do.

Sure, they are a bit "controling", Sure they run to a schedule, Sure you are going to have pretty full boats and Sure there are other operators who allow more "leeway" so to speak, but if you want a slick, well run, well financed operation with clean boats, good rental gear, professional instructors and dive masters and all the little extras like a video or "still" shots of your dive, I think you would have to go far to beat Stuart.

 

[idocsteve]

though I had to try 3 tanks before finding one that was "full."

The easiest thing to do is change your definition of full. 2800 lbs or more on an AL80 and I'm good to go.