Rangiroa & Bora Bora Dive Company Recommendation Needed.
- Thread starter gkornfeld
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Wingy
Contributor
Can definitely recommend diving with Frank at Rangiroa Paradive THE RANGIROA PARADIVE Club ( Experiences that mark the story of our lives ...) but would not recommend Top Dive either in Rangi or their Bora Bora op. Bora Bora diving is just ok, Robyn at the pier can book you with Yvan at Bora Bora Diving Centre - Bora Diving Center: Accueil . If you want to dive the pass comfortably you may want to think about a few dives in Bora Bora first.
Thanks for info, going early next year!
May look up Bora Diving Center.
May look up Bora Diving Center.
Mike
Contributor
0-24 dives is very light dive experience for Rangiroa. You are probably be going to be way over your head there, I'd advise bring a large supply of bandaids for you, since with that little of dive experience you're going to be smashing against hard coral because their can be tremendous surge and current to deal with in the passes in Rangiroa unless you have your buoyancy really dialed in, expect some bad cuts.
6 passenger is a great dive op if you're an advanced diver, but still a great dive op even if you're new, they are very safety minded and will watch out for you to some degree, but they are going to expect you to be pretty well self-sufficient. Top Dive will dumb down the dives a bit more and might be a better choice for you, with that few of dives you are not really going to notice the differences in any of this yet.
Mike
Contributor
Top dive gets mixed reviews. (you can go to tripadvisor.com and read the reviews) They are by far the biggest dive op in French Polynesia with locations sprinkled though out the most popular islands. Business is business no matter what part of the world it takes place, when you get big, you get big at a price. Sometimes you'll hear them described in less than favorable terms in regards to the baggage that comes with a bigger operation>> less personal service/attention, being more of a slave to a schedule than to the joy of diving, hit and miss depending on who the dive master is on the dive,, diving the more tame dive sites due to the average lower experience of their dive clientel, etc...
As I said though, a lot of this stuff is stuff that is invisible to the new diver, to the more experienced diver, they've been there, done that and are looking for a more 'advanced' and more personal dive experience and often shy away from big, impersonal dive operations. Being a new diver you will have a great time with them, they are safe and competent and sometimes being new, the 'dumbed' down version is safer especially in Rangiroa, where the dive conditions are more complicated, believe me, the worst dive you go on will likely still be one of the best dives you've ever been on.
As I said though, a lot of this stuff is stuff that is invisible to the new diver, to the more experienced diver, they've been there, done that and are looking for a more 'advanced' and more personal dive experience and often shy away from big, impersonal dive operations. Being a new diver you will have a great time with them, they are safe and competent and sometimes being new, the 'dumbed' down version is safer especially in Rangiroa, where the dive conditions are more complicated, believe me, the worst dive you go on will likely still be one of the best dives you've ever been on.
Wingy
Contributor
Mike has pretty well summed it up. They are the cattle boat operator in F.P - big groups of new divers are their forte. If you check them out on tripadvisor look at the post where a diver had a nip from one of the lemon sharks TD feed, other ops in FP were expressing concerns this would happen 6 months ago.
Last edited:
kneptoon
Contributor
In Rangiroa I recommend Six Passengers. I dove with them for a week. They are really one of the top three operators I have ever used. My rather lengthy review is on the thread below this one. I have not heard anything that would entice me to dive in Bora Bora. If it is not too late, try to add Fakarava to your trip.
Shasta_man
Contributor
If you dive with sharks, you could be bitten by a shark.
We returned last week. We were on a Paul Gauguin cruise that visited Rangiroa and then we returned toRangiroa staying 6 nights at the Kia Ora. From the ship they arranged the dives and I did 2 dives with Top Dive. There were 25 divers in 3 zodiacs and each group had between 4 and 6 divers per dive master while in the water. When I returned to Rangiroa I used The 6 Passengers. 9 divers in one zodiac split into two groups.
Neither operator fed the sharks and there were plenty of sharks. Both operators were great. Staying at the Kia Ora Top Dive would have been the most convenient and in hindsight I should have used them. If staying elsewhere I would recommend The Six Passengers as their dive shop has a bunch of relaxing lounge chairs for use between dives. I would not classify TD as a cattle boat as their zodiacs were pretty big, about 50% larger than The 6 Passengers.
As an aside, I was able to dive with Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of Jaques (sp?) Cousteau as he was on our cruise.
Neither operator fed the sharks and there were plenty of sharks. Both operators were great. Staying at the Kia Ora Top Dive would have been the most convenient and in hindsight I should have used them. If staying elsewhere I would recommend The Six Passengers as their dive shop has a bunch of relaxing lounge chairs for use between dives. I would not classify TD as a cattle boat as their zodiacs were pretty big, about 50% larger than The 6 Passengers.
As an aside, I was able to dive with Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of Jaques (sp?) Cousteau as he was on our cruise.
Similar threads
