Extra Divers, Speyside - Review

[Jill M]

My husband, Paul took the Open Water Dive Course with Extra Divers in Speyside that I had won in the 2005 competition. The Dive Operation is based at the Speyside Inn with Kern Spencer as the Dive Master.

Kern is a great guy who explained everything clearly & patiently. I was lucky enough to spend the whole time (in the background) with my husband whilst he completed the course. The entire course was delivered professionally by Kern and he made the job fun, even when my husband found the theory sessions difficult, Kern took time to support him with extra explanations.

The dive sites are located around Little Tobago, with plenty to see. My husband was amazed at the amount of fish and colours of the coral. They even saw a shark!

We drove from Plymouth each day to Speyside which took an hour & 15 minutes each way. This was not the best way to start the training each day and with hindsight, we should have stayed at the Speyside Inn. But, we got there early enough to have breakfast each day. It cost 50TT$ (£5) for fruit juice, coffee/tea, choice of bacon, sausage, eggs , pancakes and toast & jam. Definitely recommended.

The whole experience was great for both myself & my husband. We were both made to feel welcome and put at ease. The other divers that used the organisation were extremely friendly.. The dive gear used was all in good condition, even though they had to improvise when it came to fitting my husband with a BCD (jacket) – but he is rather large.

Paul passed the Open Water Dive Course and is now looking forward to many more dives in the future.

This was our second experience of diving, having previously dived in Taiwan for a trial dive. We were given more safety information with this dive operation – just such basic information as ‘don’t hold your breath whilst diving’, .which should have been given to us previously.

We have no real comparison of ‘proper’ diving companies, but Extra Divers in Speyside seemed ok, although it has recently gone though a change of management and with branches as Crown Point and Speyside there is plenty of choice of dive sites.

Extra Divers have branches in many countries – Paul will certainly be using them again in the future.