Dive Op in Barbados - my choices ur opinions

[fishfriend]

I am trying to decide between DIve shop Barbados Haroon and Barbados Blue (affiliated with Hilton). All other operators are atleast a 100 USD more expensive for my package.
I know you guys are going to judge me but I am leaning slightly towards Barbados Blue since I might not have to lift tanks et al to the boat etc. And also since I am going to diving multiple days, someone told me Dive shop could get repetetive as they do the same sites often. Any opinions?
Anybody knows how many divers will be on a Barbados Blue boat... I like smaller crowds.
Thanks in advance.

 

[dgreenh]

Sorry, I don't know anything about the 2 dive ops you have narrowed it down to, but when I went to Barbados we dove with Hightide Watersports. We selected them because they are the "official headquarter dive centre assisting with the of the Barbados Sea Turtle Project". On 2 days during the week we dove with the marine biologist and his team, got to catch hawskbull turtles, take them on the boat and measure, photograph, tag and release them. It was a good experience. Saying all that, depending on your interests, it might be fun to dive with them for a day when they are tagging turtles.

 

[Trinigordo]

Hey Fish, this past summer I went out with Barbados Blue and I would not hesitate to reccomend them to anyone.

Barbados Blue has two boats, one is an aluminium pontoon style boat that can very easily accomodate at least a dozen divers comfortable, minus the afternoon dives at Carlisle Bay the boat was very rarely carrying more than 4 people on a given dive. Their second boat is a pirogue/panga style boat typical lower Caribbean dive boat that was only used for our trip to the Stav.

As for repetitive diving most of the dive sites picked are going to be part of the same extended reef system. I did every dive they went out for during a 5 day period and did not find the diving repetitive at all. That one reef provided many different dive sites and all had their own unique charm.

If you are going to be diving as much as possible it might be important to note that Barbados Blue runs a trip to Carlisle Bay every afternoon. So Carlisle Bay would be done many times during your trip there. This is a huge plus for me, as I found the more I was on Carlisle Bay the more enjoyable it became. Each of the wrecks has it's own little perks that don't get tiresome.

A note on Carlisle Bay: It is a series of wrecks all within the dive and ave. depth would be like 20 feet and max depth would be somewhere like 56 feet. A truely enjoyable dive, that offers a multiple wreck dive of DSD difficulty level, no currents, high viz, etc.

 

[RICHinNC]

John Moore of Dive Barbados Ltd is a good guy. He uses a small 6 pack boat but it isnt a luxury dive by any means.

And I agree ref Carlisle Bay. I love to dive there too.

 

[The Chad]

We just went in Dec and used Haroon. Nice guys, they have 2 boats and my wife and I were the only ones on it. Was alot of fun even in the shallow place where the cattle boats go. Ask em to show you the seahorses and the air pocket in the wreck. I'd use them again,