An
island vs. a
Country.
CoCo View is far and away my choice for land based in the Caribbean. It is a liveaboard that doesn't rock. You will get your 5x dives in a day, and it's 24/7, something rarely found on any liveaboard anymore- not since the lawyers got involved.
The
Exumas will offer you good opportunity to see Sharks. On our most recent liveaboard trip there, on my wife's 250th dive, she knew from the first splash that she had already seen a few Sharks. (After her 5th dive with them in her history, she had seen enough Caribbean Sharks) We were with a boatload of Brits who were still largely agog over Sharks. We slowed one of the group leaders down, handed him a magnifying glass, and showed him what he was missing when we came upon a live, functional reef structure.
Roatan's South Shore is a diving environment unique in the Caribbean. There are rare sightings of Sharks, but the point of this area's shallow, vertical Sunlit walls is the macro creatures. Little colorful Crabs hiding in plain sight, Seahorses, and best of all- Pipefish. Jawfish holding their eggs in their mouths, Squid, Octopus, the stuff it takes some skill to appreciate. CoCoView is located in the center of this zone and is best equipped of all options to provide you with perfect access.
I understand what you're saying, "the accommodations don't matter", but when you are selecting a liveabaord, I absolutely disagree. There is a huge difference between some ships- even those in the same fleet.
My personal choices are now irrelevant, although they used-to cause quite a bit of vocal disagreement. In the Caribbean, I preferred the SWATH vessel of the now extinct Nekton fleet. In fact, worldwide, I searched-out SWATH vessels for diving and did weeks on many liveaboards that Americans are totally unaware of. The Nektons had a lot of negative complaints, but the dive deck and water access was not among them- that and SWATH vessels do not rock.
I bring this up only to point out that you and I seem to see the week
from the perspective of a dive-dive-dive situation, where others might be more concerned with food, table service and the look of the interiors of the ship.
The accommodations more importantly include
the operations of the physical layout of the dive deck, as well as re-boarding access. There are a few liveaboards that are quite well laid out, most are not. Most are retrofits from commercial uses with added fiberglass and wood. CoCoView has the best wet-room gear storage systems I have seen and the dive boats and shore dive are as easy as it can be.
You're going to want to do both sooner or later. Pick a good liveabaord.... my best Exumas choice now is Aqua Cat... and
flip a coin.
