What about this trip was excellent? Certainly the diving. Jesse Leopold, the owner, is also the dive master and, in our case, dive instructor. My son and I were able to go through our six dives to obtain our Advanced Open Water certificate. We had an excellent patient teacher, who was also a consummate dive master; everything was always well prepared and ready to go. He was the third dive buddy who knew where to go to find the most interesting sites underwater. On the ocean side, The Labyrinth was the best. It was a path under arches of coral that I suspect was about 80-100 yards long, as well as a couple of shorter ones. On the island, the greatest was the Eldorado Blue Hole. Absolutely exceptional. You jump into a freshwater pond, and head down. At about 60', you go through a halocline which separates the cool fresh water from the warmer sea water. Below this you move into the cave which was not confining at all. It soared above and swept below. You could hover near the stalactites and stone flow shine your flashlights on formations that at times had the look of a bearded face. As we moved back up,, we could see transparent fish and a wispy cloudlike boundary that looked like a miniature view of cirrus clouds at 38,000 feet.
What else was excellent? The food! We loved Maggie's dinners of local seafood (conch, lobster, hogfish, grouper, snapper, etc...) cooked in a variety of island styles. Cerviche, fritters, and the modestly named boiled fish. Boiled fish has a tomato and peppers sauce with just a wonderful flavor. Chelsea (Jesse's wife) made breakfasts to order and heavenly baked goods for dinner desserts. As we were diving lunches were necessarily light.
We appreciated the all-inclusive nature, especially as we were off-season. The taxi with Ms. Lloyd was waiting for us, with an island hospitality that came through with everyone we met.
Finally, I know we were off-season, so I suspect this is not typical of high-season, but it was so peaceful. The beach has a clear view 3/4 mile south to the jetty and about 2 miles north to a little point-let on the coast. In the 5 1/2 days we were there, we saw the next door neighbors walking their dog on the crushed coral beach (sugarlike sand), and one day while motoring back from our dive, we saw 5 kids about a mile up the beach. That was it.
Next time, it won't just be my son and diving, but my wife and daughter, too.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC