FOREVER DIVE

Je suis niveau 2 français et j’avoisine une soixantaine de plongées à ce jour, principalement ici à Nosy Be avec Forever Dive. Je ne peux que tarir d’éloges à propos de ce club dirigé par Sylvia et Rolland. En effet, leur professionnalisme et leur expérience de plus de 25 ans ici à Nosy be m’ont toujours conforté dans mon choix de partager avec eux ces extraordinaires plongées. J’estime avoir réellement évolué et progressé de façon évidente en toute sécurité et dans une extraordinaire ambiance. La confiance en est le maitre mot. Le plaisir est inégalable auprès d’eux, toujours disponibles et à l’écoute, ils démontrent une qualité de services et de prestations d’un niveau exceptionnel. J’ai toujours ressenti un immense plaisir à m’intégrer auprès des différentes palanquées. Mais à ce jour je suis profondément déçu, sidéré voire atterré par le comportement de certains clients soi-disant plongeurs certifiés (Hans…). Il est évident que je ne me permettrai aucune impolitesse à leur sujet ; mais au-delà d’être incompétents, inadaptés et insuffisamment formés au pré-requis de notre passion, ils s’avèrent être des menteurs, des malhonnêtes et des impolis. Je ne pourrais qu’être admiratif par la disponibilité, l’adaptation, l’écoute et la patience de Sylvia et de Rolland à leur sujet. Au-delà du piètre savoir-faire de ces clients (à la limite d’un baptême pour certains) certains se permettront d’afficher avec moi un comportement irrespectueux (pas de réponse à un bonjour, plusieurs fois et en plusieurs langues…). Je reste sidéré par ce manque de savoir être, c’est vraiment minable et surtout ce n’est vraiment pas dans l’esprit de nos palanquées et surtout de cette nécessaire décontraction et concentration à l’abord d’une plongée. Je finirai par pointer du doigt l’un d’entre eux, Hans à l’occurrence, ouvre un dictionnaire à la page humilité ainsi que respect. Merci. Avec ton air méprisant je te considère comme quelqu’un de dangereux dans cette activité, bon vent !

Worst dive experience so far. We were a group of 5 friends, 3 with 1* CMAS and 2 with a PADI open water license. We communicated our dive levels months in advance so they should be aware of our dive skills and how much guidance we need. Unfortunately, after four dives, Sylvia found it necessary to scream at us in a very unpolite way that the dive level of the two open water divers is ridiculously bad and that she is not paid to help us out. She keeps on bragging about how experienced she is, but if she's really that 'good' she should have known our dive level and not blame the divers right after a dive when still hanging in the water. Overall, there is a huge lack of communication and understanding, no room for empathy at all. We payed a lot of money for feeling unsafe in the water. Our 5 last days at the end of a beautiful trip through Madagascar were ruined because of her. She really created the worst atmosphere ever. Besides that, she also personally attacked me by questioning if I really wanted to dive or if I was just doing it for my boyfriend!!! The reason why she asked me? Because it took me some time to get used to go down in deeper waters... Like it will help to insult a person when she/he is feeling uncomfortable and insecure... I can only conclude saying such things is out of stupidity.

Disappointing I never ever ever wright review, but this time I had to cause I don't want other divers to have to put up with this. No briefing, throwing the buoy on corals reefs, shouting at my beginners friends. Bad atmosphere. I would rather look up for another dive centre if I would come to madagscar.

worst diving center ever
We did 4 days of diving (2 planned dives/day) with this center, that had 2 dive “guides”; Silvia and her husband Rolland. Foremost, the “guidance” was very limited, the briefings were chaotic, with no clear plan (often they just said: "we jump in the water and we will see…) leading to several people (including others outside our group) to get lost, the instructors had to be chased and tapped on the back for a manometer update as they never looked at you and Rolland could only speak french, leading to miscommunications (e.g. we go down by line or without) and people feeling unsafe. Besides that they don’t care about their clients, they don’t care about the reef either, throwing their buoy with a lead weight on top of the reef for every dive, breaking several corals. But the worst remark to be made is that Silvia, the owner of the establishment, is an extremely rude, careless women that made us all feel very uncomfortable and created a bad atmosphere in various ways. We were a group of 5 divers, of which 2 were beginners that just got their PADI open water degree and 3 CMAS 1* divers with 40 to 100 dives in different countries. Silvia was properly informed about our experience and started to blame the beginners for a lack of skills, mentioning that they should not go diving, are not worthy of their licence, and should pay her as an instructor instead of a guide. The irony is that all our dives went well, and she only helped the beginners with regulating their boyancy in the first dived. One of the beginners stopped after 5 dives because she didn’t feel safe anymore, very sad for a first experience. Besides, she was rude in a personal way, for example asking my girlfriend whether she wanted to dive because of me or because of herself and screaming that we should listen if she was talking. Although her husband appologized for things that went wrong, Silvia never did and even made it worst at the payment stage, where she charged more than agreed before, a dive that was not performed by one of the divers (because of the chaos and miscommunications during the briefing) and, when we confronted her with our opinion, she denied all problems and said that we can come back after 10 000 dives, because we clearly lacked experience to found that opinion.
Nosy be is a beautifull place to dive, but please do not dive with them. We shared our opinion with some of the locals and they recommended to dive with Manta dive, scuba nosy be or sakatia lodge. I wish we knew that beforehand.

I'm PADI Advanced with over 70 dives in perhaps 15-20 dive sites around the world over 20 years. I have to say, yesterday diving with Sylvia off of Nosy Tanikely, Madagascar, was probably one of my best dive experiences ever.

She set up Forever more than a couple of decades ago, making it one of the longest standing operators on Nosy Be. She is a very experienced instructor with a lot of knowledge, not just of the diving but also the last 25 years at Nosy Be. Her client orientation is fantastic, she highly punctual, her equipment is like new and the highest standard I've ever used and prices are amongst the most reasonable I came across after contacting 10 dive centres.

Highly recommended for those wanting a fantastic diving experience.

Addition: the following day I went with another company on a different part of the island and it was quite a contrast.. an hour late, not such good equipment, and not the right sizes, not such good instruction. So I recommend Forever Dive even more now.