Bahamas cruise & shark dives

[ben@scorpiodivers.com]

hey everyone,
greetings from cancun, i could do with a little help on this one!?
im planning a 5 day cruise mid febuaray to celebrate my girlfriends birthday and valentines day, ahh, we want to jump a cruise at cozumel and hit the bahamas for four or five days.....
first cruise, first trip to bahamas...... can anyone help??
obviously id like to stay away from the cruise dive ops and go with the sb reputable and recommended shops, tiger sharks would be on the wish list but i guess these are further out from the cruise areas??
how much time would we get on each island to do sweet dives or are we better off flying to bahamas and bumming around ourselves, my usual style of traveling and diving!
ideas and recommendations would be greatly appreicated

cheers all

ben

 

[scubajb]

Hey Ben...
I went to Atlantis Paradise island in June. Dove with Bahama Divers and had a good time (dove the Lost Blue Hole and saw A LOT of reef sharks. I hear Stuart Cove's has some shark dives but sounds like there are a lot of people, not sure though. My next trip there will hopefully be to an out island with less people. More money, great diving... Good luck and have a great time.
Jim

 

[vhs]

I just got back from Stuart's Cove. I believe they do 2 afternoon shark dives everyday. We went with a local dive shop here in Michigan and there were 12 divers for the shark dives from our group. There were about another 6 that were also on the boat. There was more than enough room. Stuart Cove is very safety conscious. They let you know where all the first aid, DAN O2 kits, radio channels and stuff at the beginning as well as doing a briefing before the dives w/a general plan. For the shark dives, the first dive is a wall dive, as soon as the boat stops the sharks know that the second dive is a feed dive. The dives were great. We had a lot of photos and a video taken. There were about 30 or more caribbean reef tip sharks for the feed. The water temp was 74 and I was a little cold after 40 minutes. They allow anywhere from 40 min-60 min for dives.

 

[ben@scorpiodivers.com]

sounds awesome,
i did a bunch of shark dives in austrailia and i want to get my girlfriend diving with a pack of hungry reef sharks! thanks for the info, stuarts cove definatly sounds like the favorable op, i also got pointed the smaller isl. san salvador etc... for the tigers and migrating hammerheads!!
happy days, happy dives, thanks for the info all