debersole:
I'm planning on going there in July with my family. I would be very interested in your and anyone else's experiences. Thanks in advance!
Enjoyed the island. The people are all very nice and friendly. I was unimpressed by the diving and the diver operator.
Maybe I am a little spoiled but I expected the dive staff to be more helpful and interested in the customer. There was no offer made to help carry equipment, to change tanks between dives or to help us get in and out of the boat at the dive sites. While on the dives, the DM (very young) did not seem interested in making sure that we saw all the sights. He was very mechanical and just swam an obvious pattern with few stops to see the sights. At one point, we got lectured for not "keeping up" even though my buddy and I were the only ones on the dive. Very annoying. When we pulled back into the marina, the boat captain and divemaster were gone in a flash (every day) leaving us to pack out all of our own gear. It seemed that all they were talking about was what they were going to have for lunch. Apparently the boat captain's girlfriend works in a local eatery and this was the motivation to head for lunch so quickly. They were both very nice and personable but, in my opinion, not an asset to the diver operator. We dove 3 days (6 dives) with Valentine's.
In addition, the reefs seemed relatively lifeless to us. Not much in the way of fish and a lot of the coral was dead. The highlight of the trip was sighting an Eagle Ray on the last dive of the last day. Very cool.
Last year we went to Great Guana Cay off of Marsh Harbor in the Abacos. We dove with Troy Albury at Dive Guana. Comparatively speaking, everything in Guana was much better than Harbour Island. The reefs were much better and the dive operator was excellent. Troy was super attentive to the divers and really went out of his way to show us some cool stuff. Troy's helper, Narod, was excellent. He assembles all of your equipment, swaps tanks for you, helps you get into and out of your BC, helps you into and out of the water, etc. When the diving is done, he hauls all of your stuff back to the shop, rinses your equipment, etc, etc.
I hope that I have not doused your excitement about going to HI. I had no "problems" per se, just disappointent with the diving. There is another operator on the island called Dive Fox. I have not used them or heard a lot about them. They are relatively small and may be an alternative to Valentine's if you are interested. They are on the South end of the island next door to HammerHead's Bar.
Good Luck with your journey.
-DG
