Eurodivers in Zakynthos

Reviews

• san_tigro 24 Aug 2011
  Go with another group

  I had a fairly unfortunate experience with Eurodivers and while I have never done this before, it was enough to make me want to warn other divers to go elsewhere.
  I rang the day before and was told I could turn up for a dive the next morning. I asked what site they would be diving and they said they usually decide in the morning. The next morning, I turned up at the shop only to then be told there were too many people booked. They suggested I wait to see if others who had booked didn't turn up. Eventually they said it would be fine. Ok, great. So what site will we be diving? "Don't know yet, we'll decide on the boat". Err, right.
  As it turns out, it would have been more sensible for them to arrange separate dive trips, one for the first time "try a dive" people (of which there were about 14) and one for the experienced divers (of which there were 9). Because of the numbers, it was very tight on the boat, but more importantly for the quality of the dive, the large number of first time divers impacted the choice of dive site, meaning the more experienced divers had a fairly shallow dive in a less than exciting location. There was not much to see (despite excellent visibility).
  Further, Eurodivers is run by a husband and wife team who are unfortunately teaching their kids some terrible diving practices. For example:
  1. the husband who led the dive explained that there would be no dive plan, he would "make it up as he went along". We might go left or right after we get down there, he'd let us know. At one point the group became divided when 5 went right of a large rock and 4 went left, my dive buddy and I stuck together, but it was entirely unclear which group contained the dive leader.
  2. the dive leader not only failed to abide by the "look, don't touch" rule, but literally dug an octopus out of its home and held it down so others could "pet" it. The poor thing was squirting ink and trying to get away the whole time.
  3. the dive leader proposed that my buddy (who was lower on air than I) surface while I should continue to swim around with the leader and a couple of others who had some air left. I had to signal that I would stick with my buddy and went up with him.
  4. one of the couple's kids was regularly standing on the rocks and the sand, causing clouds of sand/damage to growth on the rocks whenever she kicked off, yet neither husband nor the second dive master with whom she was buddied indicated she should correct her buoyancy.
  To top it all off, because of wind, the surface was a bit choppy. When we returned from our dive, we learned that this had meant that the first time divers didn't get to go in the water (too choppy to properly instruct them and a bit difficult for them to get on/off the boat). Fair enough, but the water was not so rough to prevent experienced divers going in, even when I had had only about 12 dives under my belt I was diving off boats in swells larger than we experienced that day. Yet, they cancelled our second dive. They tried to say it was because the sea was too rough, but the main reason seemed to be that they didn't want the majority of the people (ie the first time divers) to have to wait for us and because the wife had become seasick (not sure why you would get into this business if you are prone to sea-sickness?).
  Despite all of the above, what eventually made me decide to write this review was the appalling way the wife spoke of Greeks. While driving us to and from the beach, she kept bad-mouthing "these stupid Greeks" and their driving.
  Honestly, it seems to me that these two are in the wrong business in the wrong country. Overall, it was a pretty unimpressive operation.