Nassau vs. St Marten vs. San Juan scuba

[laundritek]

My husband, two daughters and I will be going on the July 2 sailing of the Navigator of the Sea. We are wanting to go scuba diving. We have already booked the Kon Tiki Boat on St Thomas and have Nassau, St. Marten, and San Juan left to choose from. Could I please get some help on choosing where to scuba? Thank you for your help:)

[bruce-r]

I think that unless your ship offers a dive excursion in San Juan, you won't be diving there. Any decent diving there is at least a couple of hours drive from San Juan.

 

I was very disappointed with the diving in St. Maarten. All the dive sites are in the open ocean, so I wouldn't go out unless the ocean was dead flat calm, and even then I wouldn't expect much.

 

I haven't been diving in the Bahamas, yet. That would probably be your best bet since you have ruled out St. Thomas, which has some pretty good diving. In fact, of the islands you are visiting, I would rank St. Thomas as my first choice with Nassau a second choice.

[mu1809]

We were in Naussau last week. My husband did two dives and said they were both great-excellent visability and lots of fish and coral. He would dive in Naussau again without hesitation.

[laundritek]

mu1809 - Thanks for the response. Could I get the name of the diving shop he went through?

[Jerry_G]

I dove St Marten, Nassau, and San Juan in February.

 

San Juan - The best diving is a 2 to 3 hour drive away followed by a 2-3 hour boat ride. Definitely not doable in 1 day. In the San Juan area, the diving sucked. We ran into a very bad time of the year and had visibility in the 5-6 foot range. It was a good learning experience to dive limited visibility, but If I return to San Juan I'll probably tour the fort.

 

St Marten - Definitely better than San Juan, but still nowhere near what you see in the Western Carribean. I actually saw truck axles, old tires and very few fish. Also the coral was probably 50% dead

 

Nassau - I spent a week here and was never bored. We dove with Stuart's Cove on the southern tip of the island. They have so many different locations for you to dive that a full week was worth it. You can dive with the sharks, do deep dives along the walls, dive wrecks, or do a pop-up dive in some of the most beautiful coral that I've seen(Can't remember the site name and don't have my dive log with me)

 

Whatever you decide remember "Any dive is a good dive"

Jerry

[sea-jay]

I pulled your itinerary as posted below. You only have 6 hours in Nassau and that is really cutting it close on time to get off the ship, get to a dive shop, boat out, do a couple of dives, and return. If the Navigator offers a ship's scuba dive, sign up now. Nassau (Bahamas) will give you a good dive no matter what site they choose. If you have an opportunity to extend your vacation, you can drive from Miami down to Key Largo in an hour and dive there. They have lots of dive shops and many will accomodate your schedule. You didn't mention whether you DDs will be diving with you. If you have four diving, you can almost get a private boat.

 

 

 

I would pass on St. Maarten and San Juan.

 

 

 

02-Jul Mami5:00 PM Boarding

 

03-Jul At Sea

 

04-Jul San Juan 2:00 PM 10:00 PM Docked

 

05-Jul St Thomas 8:00 AM 6:00 PM Docked

 

06-Jul St Maarten 8:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked

 

07-Jul At Sea

 

08-Jul Nassau 1:00 PM 7:00 PM Docked

 

09-Jul Miami 8:30 AM Departure

 

 

 

 

 

Happy bubbles.