Discover Scuba Diving

Having done Discover SCUBA before, though it's been 8 years, we pretty much thought we knew what to expect. Aruba Fly N Dive blew us out of the water! First, they picked us up at the pier and then took us to this little shop. There were a total of 4 students, including my husband and myself. After watching the required PADI film, our initial pool instructor was the owner of the shop and he was incredible. He saw that I was having challenges with my mask and before I had a chance to say anything about it, he swapped it out with one that fit me wonderfully. The gear was all as comfortable as could be expected and everything looked up to date. When we got on our dive boat, the waters were pretty rough, but 1.) there was nothing the captain could do about it, and 2.) Hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. :) On the way out we found out that we were going to be doing a drift dive which is very cool, and we were not going out to other areas of the island that are really overrun by other divers and snorkelers. We had 2 instructors with us underwater which, by ""regulations"" was more than we needed for the size class we had, but it made me feel a lot more comfortable and gave us a little more freedom than having to do the ""nose to fin"" sort of thing. When resurfacing the instructors did everything right by us, making sure that we weren't coming up too fast. We saw a ton of really cool things, including a Moray Eel, but the coolest by far was the airplane. So, several years ago, Aruba Fly N Dive found this old plane and after working with Aruba sank it so that experienced divers could go through it and those of us that weren't experienced could take a good look at it. The way they did it leads you to believe at first glance that it was a plane that went down, but once you start looking at it you can tell it was put there. Either way, it was incredibly cool!

Aruba Fly N Dive was a top notch operation! There was some confusion of the pickup point in that it wasn't made clear that we had to meet the van outside the country's security clearance area, not just off the boat's security area. Fortunately, the boat's security/concierge was able to contact the group and they raced back to the port to pick us up. I'm a certified diver,but my boyfriend isn't. Ed (our dive instructor) was very patient with the non-certified students and was knowledgeable and could ""read"" the students with regard to their comfort levels. We had a great dive and I wouldn't hesitate working with Aruba Fly N Dive again!