Grenada, ECO Dive

After a week conference this April, I have to say this is the worst dive operation I have seen in 40 years of diving the Carribean. There are good dive sites to the north, but the locals have killed most of the fish and the coral in this immediate area. Visibility was 20-40', though it may have been due to weather/surge conditions, we were often taken to horrible sites, when good ones existed nearby. For example, at shallower depths (30-60'), we could see better viz and coral at 70'. The boat was small, poorly designed with the worst entry ladder I have seen. Backflipping into the water was not a problem, but there was no passing lane in the boat, and no bench could provide enough room to sit with your tank on. The guides were nice as they could be, but the "dive plan" was essentially nonexistent (as were the guides on one dive-they dropped 1/2 of the divers into bad viz, moved away with the boat and never showed up, until 3 groups of divers all came to surface to find one another). I do not trust a guide that says he will come in to join you, then await your surfacing to "find" you. My advice is to either stay away from these "resort based" operations, or encourage them to take you to the more impressive wrecks (not the 25' fiberglass boat in 25' of water) and deeper reef system. Lastly, I don't mind rigging everything up myself, but if you want to be pampered, go elsewhere. They do put the tanks on the boat.

Good point, how good the dive centre was. Bad points, none. Would have been good to hear what the viz & sealife was like.

My wife and I were on our hols last Sept and we had already decided we were going to do our PADI open water course. Grenada, ECO Dive Eco dive was connected to the hotel (Coyaba) what a great little hotel.

We spoke to the main instructor who put us at ease from the minute we started to talk about the course. We then met the owner he was very friendly as well. I had a bad experience on my first open water dive when I went to clear my mask and swallowed water by opening my mouth at the same time, I panicked pulled out my reg and tried to put my snorkel in (not much use when your 25 ft under water) he calmed me down as all I wanted to do was return to the surface. He had me kneeling on the sea bed looking straight into his eyes trying to focus me on my breathing and getting that right. He got me to clear my mask and then fill it and clear it over and over till I was ok with this again. We finished our dive which was another 20 minutes as this all happened in the first 10mins.

We went on to complete our open water course and I can assure you if I did not feel confident and comfortable with the instructor I would not have carried on with the training. I know I had paid out for the course but I would have just said goodbye to that.

We went on to complete 8 dives whilst in Grenada what a place and the staff at ECO Dive were all fantastic.

Overall as a newly qualified diver if it was not for the patience of the instructor we had and the whole team I would have walked away from it and them.

Superb would recommend this shop to all in Grenada.