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Dive Review of Brendal's Dive Center/Green Turtle Club in
Bahamas/Green Turtle Cay (Abacos)

Brendal's Dive Center/Green Turtle Club, Aug, 2008,

by Tripp Jones, SC, USA (Top Contributor Top Contributor 71 reports with 27 Helpful votes). Report 4295.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 4 stars Food 4 stars
Service and Attitude 4 stars Environmental Sensitivity N/A
Dive Operation 5 stars Shore Diving 3 stars
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ N/A
Beginners 4 stars
Advanced 5 stars
Comments Our dive shop, Wateree Dive Center, of Columbia, S.C. brought 14 divers down to Green Turtle Cay for about the third trip, but this was our first. We flew from Jacksonville on Craig Air to Daytona to pick up a few divers and then to Marsh Harbour. The flight was about 1 1/2 hours overall on a 19 seat twin engine and was fine. After landing at Marsh Harbour, we had a 45 minute taxi ride to the ferry at Treasure Cay to go over to Green Turtle Cay. This is a ferry that runs on "real time" and not "island time" The taxi trip was about $20 pp (7 in taxi) and the ferry was $13 pp for 15 min. trip. This was not a negative transportation concern at all.

The Green Turtle Club is nice, clean and food was good. Our package included breakfast, so we ate lunch on dive boat and in town 6 of the nights we were there. The rooms were clean and always made up by the return from diving. Golf carts are a must to get around the 1 by 3 mile island, especially to go to town to some of the local restaurants for dinner. Miss Emily's, Harveys, and others were really good and fairly reasonbly priced. I would go to a grocery store the first day and get soft drinks and to another store for reasonably priced libations, especially rum.

Brendal's Dive Center does a very good job with the entire operation. Usually the dive sites were about 20 minutes away and we left every AM about 9 AM for a 2 tank dive. The dives were 45-65 feet with very long bottom times. I had a 97 minute bottom time and the shortest of the 13 dives the entire week was 62 minutes!! Brendal leads all dives and I know why he is called "Bottom Time Brendal". We saw many small critters that had not seen before. Brendal and staff do a great job of pointing out the "tiniest critters" possible.

We saw a fair number of sharks, mainly reef and 1 bullshark also. Large grouper were plentiful and it was great to see that many around, especially with other places we have been.

The coral was good, not great. There was some bleaching of elkhorn close to surface, but all in all, it was very good. Visibility was usually 40 to 70 feet, so it was OK.

The trip back to Marsh Harbour was not a problem, but the Marsh Harbour Airport is certainly lacking in security. The flight back to Jacksonville was fine and the 5 hour trip back to Columbia is not a problem. Leaving the island at 10 AM and home by 8 pm is fine with me.



This is a great place to go and we will return. The dive operation is superb and tooling around on a golf cart in perfect weather is a dream vacation.

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 501-1000 dives
Where else diving Truk, Caymans, Belize, Turks and Caicos, Roatan, Cozumel, St. Kitts, Bahamas, etc
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, dry Seas calm, no currents
Water Temp 80-81°F / 27-27°C Wetsuit Thickness 0
Water Visibility 40-70 Ft/ 12-21 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions Recreational limits
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? N/A

What I Saw

Sharks Lots Mantas None
Dolphins 1 or 2 Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 4 stars Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 5 stars Large Fish 4 stars
Large Pelagics 3 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 4 stars Boat Facilities 3 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities N/A
UW Photo Comments My wife was pleased with photo ops.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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