lerpy - 4/17/2012 4:00 AM
Hey there, I just dove with Stuart Cove for a week in January and here is my honest opion. First and simple, I would dive with them again.
My advice, dive the mornings with them. I went in the mornings and in the afternoons. Yes the boats are full but in the morning, after my first dive, I was put on a boat with all experiences divers. The group on the boat were also diving the week, (it was a group of photographers from an aquarium in Chicago) so I ended up on the boat with them for the week.
I did not find the dives were restricted really, I listened to the dive brief, and the guide wants you to follow them, and generaly I found they showed you stuff, but I also just did my own dive when I wanted to. I didn’t always keep up with the group and at one point I took off following an eagle ray, and no one really seemed to care. I found chatting with the guide gave them a sense of your dive ability and they would not worry. Not one ever said anything to me for taking off. Only the fist of the two dives of the day were guided the second was pretty much do what you want. They normally gave you an hour to do your dive, which for me at least is fine especialy on an AL80.
My last day of diving the boat only had 6 people on it. Once we were away from the dock I chatted wiht the dive leader who had been on the boats with us a few times and suggested a drift on the reef as the currents were up from the full moon. She was cool with that being a small goup. We jumped in and driffted, the others on the boat were beginners and wanted to surface after only about 20 minutes. The dive leader signaled to me and my buddy to stay down as long as we want. I stayed down another almost 30 minutes drifing along the reef right into shark territory, drifting wiht the sharks was awesome. eventualy I sent a bag up and the boat came and got us.
I did the shark dive as well, first dive was on a wreck in shark territory and again there was a bit of following the dive guide, but I pretty much did my own thing on the wreck. The actualy shark feeding, my bottom time was 47 minutes, so it is a good stay on bottom and was well worth it.
The first day getting organized is a little chaotic, but after that all the paper work is done and when you show up you just grab your gear and hop on the boat.
I foudn the morning dive were early enough the cruise ship crowd was not there, however in the afternoon they were and that made it a little more annoying but I just avoided them. I am going to sound like an ass, but in some ways teh cruise ship crowd was entertaining. Watching the girl sitting there with her regulator flowing haivng no idea how to stop it and the several jumping in the water only to be dumbstruck that their regulartors aren’t working at all (tank not on).
Ok well there is my big long description, overall there is a bit of the cattle car factor, but no worse than I have seen in other island places. I would totaly use them again.