Diving in late January?

[chrismch]

just read some of the posts about the diving accident and about using the excursions by the cruise line and am a bit apprehensive. I am a new diver, just 8 dives. In late Jan 06 on Celebrity, we will be hitting the ports of St Martin, St Thomas and Nassau. We dive as a couple, have our own gear and feel comfortable with it, but we still rely on our dive masters for direction. Reading that the dive leaders don't pay attention has me uneasy. How about some insight for good dives in these ports or is this a bad time of year for diving?:p

[cal2632]

Don't think it is a bad time for diving, but never like booking through the cruise line except where time constraints make it necessary. Don't have suggestions for St. Martin or Nassau, but try Blue Island Divers in St. Thomas. You'll get more personalized service with them than with an excursion. If you don't want to dive in St. Martin, the America's Cup excursion is really fun.

[scubamargie]

Chrismch, we were brand new divers (just certified with only two open water dives) when we first dove St. Martin (1998). Looking back, we didn't realize how rough the water was -- we thought that was normal. Every time we've dove there (about 4 or 5 times) the water has been rough making getting back on the boat a real chore. I would steer clear of Dive Safari (the operator the cruises use) because they carry so many people on each boat. We have used Scuba Fun on their inflatable boat with 15 divers (still too many for our liking) and the dives were OK (saw several sharks). We always want to get in as much diving as we can, but this may be one port that's just not worth the work. Our preferred dive operator in St. Thomas is Chris Sawyer -- they are so knowledgeable and fun to dive with (http://www.sawyerdive.vi). We spent a week here and got our Advanced Open Water with Chris Sawyer. When the weather is good St. Thomas has some very nice diving.

 

As for the time of year, well, we've dove these islands in winter, summer and fall and the time of year doesn't seem to matter as much as whatever front has just passed through so it's potluck on the weather issue. :)

[chrismch]

We're booked with Celebrity for a dive in St Maartin and on their site they say the excursion is for a max of 6 divers per boat. That might be different on other cruiselines. We just got off a Princess boat and our dives there ranged from 4 to 9 divers on the boat.