Cook Islands - any rec not experiences?

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Wow I thought the food was pretty much awful everywhere we ate, but that was a very long time ago.
 
We dived on Aitutaki about 10 years ago and enjoyed it; I think the dive shop was Bubbles Below. They do stay outside the reef between dives and the sea can be pretty rough.
We are going to Rarotonga this September and I actually stopped by this thread hoping for a dive shop recommendation.
I can't speak to food on Raro, but on Aitutaki.....had absolutely the worst "Hawaiian pizza" I've ever had - barbecue sauce and broccoli. The cooks were actually peering out at us, wondering if we'd eat it. But then we found a place called Neba's (I'm guessing at the spelling now) and loved it. Just a little takeaway stand but great food.
 
When I was there I dived with Pacific Divers Muri Beach,

They were fantastic to dive with

cheers

Nath
 
I almost bought a dive shop over there a few years back but honestly there are too many dive shops for the amount of tourists so it became a dive to the bottom price wise. Patrick at adventure Cook islands would be my recommendation currently. Reality is that you are in either a RIB or "tinnie" (ally) boat. The regularly visited dive sites are mostly aimed at novice divers but there are some darn good dives to be had. My favourite is very limited when it can be done. Called "daves cave" its virtually right at the end on the main airport runway and is a series of swim throughs. If you can go either way up/down the coast aways theres good reef diving.
raro 165.jpg
 
I almost bought a dive shop over there a few years back but honestly there are too many dive shops for the amount of tourists so it became a dive to the bottom price wise.

Which one? AFAIK there are 3 for sales there...
It is a beautiful place, but hard to make a living as a dive business, it is a small market.
 
Findingmenno--it was Cook island Divers-Greg Wilson.
He just pulled the pin in the end.
He had the best training facility on the island IMO.
His pool was actually over 8 feet deep.
To be honest the amount of divers only supports 3 dive ops. 6 means everybody is hungry.
That and some really stupid politics. A virtually unused wharf that would be perfect to have dive boats tied to it-and would take you to sites in minutes etc etc.
 
I assumed so, CID has been for sale for ages. It was already closed when I was working there so never saw the facilities.

And there seemed quite a bit of animosity between the shops. Most places I lived/worked there was of course competition, but always friendly and helping each other out. Felt different there.
 
You might have seen the CID van running around for awhile after it closed. Greg is still the only Hydro test facility on the island. Far as I know he still does tank fills.Pity is that he and Ian knew about all the really good dive sites rather than the same old same old type sites.
 
Same old, same old?

I'm pretty sure Graham knew some great sites too but then, that was back in the day.
 
Hi,
Not sure if I am doing something wrong with the search engine, but I cannot find any mention of the Cook Islands. We are looking at a week or so there in July and wonder if anyone has any recent experience, that they can tell us about please.

Thanks in advance for your time

Hi Russ,
We were in Rarotonga for a week in 2017. It was the rainy season , so several days got canceled, but we were able to get 2 days diving in.
We dove with dive Rarotonga, and they were an excellent dive shop. Small groups , personable, and great owners. Paul was possibly the best DM we’ve ever worked with. Long time residents, and great historians of the island.
On the first dive out of the day, we were greeted by a breaching humpback a few hundred yards from us. (They have a pretty amazing humpback season, so you may see about coinciding your trip around that. )
Each dive we could actually hear the songs of humpbacks in the distance , though we couldn’t see them.
The visibility there was amazing ( and most of our dives are Cozumel, cayman, and Bonaire, so we’re spoilt for good visibility.
We didn’t get to dive many sites due to weather at the time, but the diving was nice. Mostly hard coral formations, and healthy, but like others have said, not extremely fishy. I guess that all depends on your experiences and what you’ve seen before.
A beautiful island, with nice beaches and lots of water activities to do ( kite surfing, fishing, snorkeling).

Feel free to message me direct if you have any questions. Id be happy to help.
 
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