The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A prominent Bahamian dive operator yesterday said he is aiming to re-open for the Thanksgiving weekend as he readies to move to facilitate Albany's south-west New Providence expansion.

Stuart Cove, principal of Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas, told Tribune Business he will be "starting from scratch" as he urged the Government to avoid a repeat of July when the tourism industry's re-opening was halted by the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases.

The re-opening comes as Mr Cove and his company are investing "a sizeable" sum in their new Coral Harbour base, to where they will eventually re-locate to make way for Albany's beachfront expansion at the former South Ocean property adjacent to its present 600-acre development.

"No one has given us any firm date. We're just going day-by-day," Mr Cove said of his company's eventual relocation. "I couldn't say enough good things about Albany. They've been awesome. When it's time and they know for sure, they will be straight up and tell me."

He added that it would take "six months to get our ducks in a row" on construction at Coral Harbour, where himself and Stuart Cove's will be their "own landlords" and own the property where their base will sit.

This will compensate, at least somewhat, for the loss of a superior location. "Nothing beats South Ocean," Mr Cove told this newspaper. "But I won't have a landlord. Right now I have to work to pay the rent. It will be my ground; I own the dirt."

While it will take longer for Stuart Cove's boats to reach the northern side of New Providence from Coral Harbour, as compared to the South Ocean location, Mr Cove said: "The loan payment will be much less than the rent, so there will be a saving there alone. It's a short-term five-year loan, then it will all be ours, which is a good thing.

"It'll have the whole package; a hotel and restaurant. The hotel will be more profitable than the dive shop. The main building, where we will have the dive shop, will have ten rooms and we will try to add a piece of beachfront property where we will add 20 rooms. If we need more we will build them. I'm looking forward to it."

Noting that Stuart Cove's has not properly operated since March 2020, when the pandemic first hit, Mr Cove said he was "starting from scratch" and will "have to open up slowly" with just seven to eight staff and himself after being forced to release around 200 workers.

"We're looking at Thanksgiving, the last weekend in November," he added, "but we don't want to go through the nonsense where we opened on July 1 and then a week later were shut down. That there was a huge headache for us as well as a lot of businesses. We had a lot of pre-bookings."