Marietas Islands Scuba Diving Adventure

All the boat staff was great, but she shop is very poorly run. We had initially contacted them to make sure my wife would be able to do her Discover Diving training land and pool sessions one day, and come diving with me the next. We were told yes. Then at the last minute we were told that instead of doing the discover training in a pool as mandated by PADI, she'd just get all of her training on the boat on the day. I knew this was a terrible idea, but for some reason I went along with it anyway. So instead of being introduced to the joys of scuba in a safe and comfortable fashion, my wife was given only very perfunctory instruction, shouted over the noise of a boat ride, to try to learn everything she needed to know. The result was that her first experience with diving was being placed in a completely uncomfortable and unsafe situation for which she was not remotely prepared, and she had a bit of a panic attack and miserable experience. Perhaps the most awkward part of the whole Oceano Adventures dive experience was the van ride from the shop to the Marina, where the manager, Seabstian, took a phone call while he was driving. We could all clearly hear the guy on the other end of the phone, calling out Sebastian on some hypocrisy or other, like "I have this email from you saying it was booked, now you're saying it's not booked? What's going on?" To which Sebastian did a "Uhh . . . I'm losing signal, I can't hear you, I'll call you back, ok bye!" It was embarrassing. Oh, and add to that, that as we were getting to the dive site, where my wife was supposed to be about to have her first dive ever, we were told "Oh by the way, this is a protected marine area so it's actually illegal to take inexperienced divers here, so if any rangers or police ask about it, just lie to them, ok? Ok!" We didn't ask for that, and didn't like it. Just take us diving somewhere else. Again, all the boat staff, the captain, the divemasters, etc, were really terrific and we loved them. But the management is a mess and we won't be dealing with this company again. Next time I'm in the area I'll try diving with one of the other shops around. Probably Dressel.