The important factors are:
* good/great diving (duh)
* romantic/beautiful beaches and atmosphere
* not many/any kids/families
* friendly locals
* on beach accomodations
Diving - This early in your diving career (25-49 dives), you are in search of the same holy grail that many similarly experienced posters are.
Right now, you need
any diving. "Quality" of diving, at least in your case, should be descriptive of a dive operation with perfect infrastructure of easy breezy dive boats, no current, 3 and even 4 boat dives per day, and with a good reputation for DM's.
Romantic beaches? - That concept came about (in its most recent incarnation) due to
Kelly Brook in
Survival Island. Beaches are made of sand, they are not, per-se, romantic. You make them so, but rolling around in the surf is ill advised. People only do it once.
Not many/ any/ families - You can find
specific resorts that disallow kids, but if you didn't want "families" (married couples?) that would be Hedo.
Hedonism Resorts (See beach reference above)
Friendly locals - Most will seem so. Basically, indigenous residents of tourist islands tolerate us, at best. You will find the greatest Disneyesque effect on the wholly owned island that are operated by cruise ships (or in Bars that are masquerading as dive resorts). On the cruise ship islands, everyone is on happy pills and the whole place is surrounded by barbed wire and guards. Both descriptions may well describe Club Med.
I have made quite a few lasting friendships amongst locals, but it does not happen on any casual level occurring during a 7 night stay.
On Beach Accomodations - You can get a hammock on the beach on the west End of Roatan for $5 a night. Shower is included. Or~ did you mean Ocean Front Rooms? Ocean View Room? A cabana on stilts over the water? Resort based shore diving?
<- that's what I'm looking for!
All the above silliness aside, go to someplace that has good easy access to any kind of diving. Log a bunch of dives, perfect your buoyancy, learn how to see things. No sense in paying big $ to travel to premium dive locations when your dive skills are not sufficient to allow you to enjoy them. Do about 75 warm water/pretty fish dives and it will become obvious.
Cayman comes to mind. A nice exotic easy vacation might be the out islands of the Bahamas, the Riding Rock Inn could be a useful stepping stone for the next big adventure. No need to go around the world, yet!
In August, your choices in the Caribbean are a low risk crap shoot, it is early in the storm season.
It is their winter, so water is cooler (maybe 75-78ish) but romantic, good diving, I think it meets all your requirements.
