The absolute best diving in Puerto Rico is supposed to be around the island of Mona, off the west coast. But Mona is a long boat ride away, and you have to get a permit to dive there. So the *next* best diving in Puerto Rico may well be an island off the west coast that isn't as far away - that is Desecheo Island, about a half-hour boat ride from Rincon. I decided that we absolutely needed to dive Descecheo.
Diving off of Rincon pretty much means diving with Taino Divers. They are the only dive shop listed for Rincon. I suppose you could bring your own equipment and charter a boat, but it seems wiser to go with people that dive there regularly, that know the dive spots like the back of their hands. That means, again, Taino Divers.
We went to the shop and signed up for a morning dive for the following day, as part of a two-boat outing. We even managed to show up the next morning on time, with some great coffee in hand (thanks Banana Dang!). We soon found out that Taino wasn't operating up to its usual standards, but not by their own fault. Seems the marina behind the shop had filled with silt, and local politics precluded it getting dredged any time soon. What that meant was (a) a staff member had to swim out and get one of the boats, which was a twin hull and could thereby slide up on the beach to pick people up, and (b) all equipment and people meant for two boats had to be loaded into the first boat using a bucket brigade line (comprised of paying clients) from the trucks to the boat, and then half us it/us transferred to the second boat out in the harbor. A slight annoyance considering the high fees Taino was charging us, but we survived it.
The boat ride itself was just fine - a little bouncing up and down and around, but I don't get seasick, so was not bothered. Martin, on the other hand, spent the trip staring fixedly at the horizon....
For our first dive, Captain Tim took us down to the Crab Shack, and our second dive was with Emily at Candyland. Wow. Just wow - these sites were absolutely stunning. Completely covered with coral and plant life of all kinds, and millions of fish everywhere. I was entranced, and could have stayed down all day. Or at least until my air ran out.
The trip back to Rincon was much rougher, and the rain started about 10 minutes before we arrived at the harbor. Cold, piercing rain. Of course, we had to do the load-in process in reverse, transferring boats, then off-loading equipment. C'est la vie, sometimes, ya know?
Taino's equipment was just fine, with the exception of Martin's rig leaking air at the tank fitting (that's okay, because Martin never uses as much air as anyone else). The boats were serviceable. The dives sites were beautiful. And yet, I give Taino 3 stars. Why? Because the whole time I was there I felt like an inconvenience to them. We paid them just over $300 for two of us to dive (more than our charter cost in Parguera!), but they couldn't be bothered to chat with us, to discuss dives afterward, or to be very friendly at all. I was more than once told where NOT to be, and what NOT to do, so that I (we) wouldn't interfere with their system. Of course their job is repetitive, they do the same thing ever day, and of course they are probably fed up with it, but they should still care a bit about customer relations.
Will we go back? I would absolutely love to dive Desecheo again, and hence I'm sure we will use Taino again. Hopefully I won't end up with the same feeling as this time. read more