Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, Tortola, St. Thomas... Which to dive, which to skip?

[sslkrissi]

Hi there,

I have done some searching through the threads on this board, but can't seem to find any that address this itinerary specifically. So far, I gather that St. Lucia and St. Thomas seem to be pretty popular choices. For all the experts, which stops would you dive? We are looking to dive in 3 our of the 5 ports. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

FYI... we are fairly new divers and do not have advanced certifications.

 

Thanks :D

[scubamargie]

Hi there,

I have done some searching through the threads on this board, but can't seem to find any that address this itinerary specifically. So far, I gather that St. Lucia and St. Thomas seem to be pretty popular choices. For all the experts, which stops would you dive? We are looking to dive in 3 our of the 5 ports. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

FYI... we are fairly new divers and do not have advanced certifications.

 

Thanks :D

 

We just got back from this itinerary and dove at all those ports except Antigua. We didn't dive there because the only decent operator is too far to justify the taxi fare. Are you planning on diving through the ship or on your own? I would say definitely dive St. Lucia and Barbados (this is a shift for me -- I'm not usually that thrilled about Barbados diving but it was really good last week). In Tortola consider diving the Rhone (through the ship). We were unimpressed with Aquaventure Scuba in Tortola -- inexperienced dive master and poorly equipped boat. St. Thomas is just OK diving. We used Admiralty and they were fine.

[sslkrissi]

Thanks for your help! I was planning on booking on my own, not with the ship. But, I have never actually been diving with the ship, so maybe I will give it a try in Tortola.

 

Thanks again!

[gmcrow]

We just got back from this itinerary and dove at all those ports except Antigua. We didn't dive there because the only decent operator is too far to justify the taxi fare. Are you planning on diving through the ship or on your own? I would say definitely dive St. Lucia and Barbados (this is a shift for me -- I'm not usually that thrilled about Barbados diving but it was really good last week). In Tortola consider diving the Rhone (through the ship). We were unimpressed with Aquaventure Scuba in Tortola -- inexperienced dive master and poorly equipped boat. St. Thomas is just OK diving. We used Admiralty and they were fine.

 

Who did you dive with on Barbados?

 

I would normally say if you have to drop 2 of the five drop Barbados and Antigua.

[scubaran]

Thanks for your help! I was planning on booking on my own, not with the ship. But, I have never actually been diving with the ship, so maybe I will give it a try in Tortola.

 

Thanks again!

 

Hi,

 

Just be aware that the Rhone's bow sits at 75ft. (which is below basic OW depth limits). Make sure the operator you choose has a dive profile for OWs besides AOW divers (sometimes they assume everyone is AOW certified).

 

Randall

[scubamargie]

Who did you dive with on Barbados?

 

I would normally say if you have to drop 2 of the five drop Barbados and Antigua.

 

Yes, normally I would agree with you, but the water viz was so much better than our last dives there (last Dec.) and the coral was lush. The turtles, eels, and fish life were abundant. It did surprise me considering our usual experiences there. We dove with The Dive Shop (not my fav but close to the pier) the sites were "The Boot" and "Asta Reef".

[scuba214]

Yes, normally I would agree with you, but the water viz was so much better than our last dives there (last Dec.) and the coral was lush. The turtles, eels, and fish life were abundant. It did surprise me considering our usual experiences there. We dove with The Dive Shop (not my fav but close to the pier) the sites were "The Boot" and "Asta Reef".

 

Scubamargie, could you tell me more about the dive shop. Is it on Carlisle beach? My DH is not a diver, can he rent a chair on the beach somewhere close while I dive. Did you book with them in advance or did you just show up that day?

[gmcrow]

Scubamargie, Thanks for the encouraging news on Barbados. We're booked with Dive Barbados. on Dec. 17. Here's hoping that the conditions hold a little longer!

[scubaran]

Scubamargie, Thanks for the encouraging news on Barbados. We're booked with Dive Barbados. on Dec. 17. Here's hoping that the conditions hold a little longer!

 

Don't get me wrong, Barbados is a wonderful island to dive on. But the fish life was lacking the last time I was there a few years ago (the large fish net we found on the reef is always a good giveaway that locals have really fished out the reefs :eek:). But in the case of Bermuda, where locals fished out the reef, in only 10 years since limits on fishing, the reef has really recovered. Since most Caribbean islands now get a vast amount of their income from tourism, I'm assuming that Barbados is also working to bring back their underwater flora and fauna. Like I said before, turtles were abundant in Barbados so hopefully you'll get to swim with some. And besides, getting wet in the warm waters of the Caribbean is worth the experience alone! :)

 

Randall

[scubamargie]

Scubamargie, could you tell me more about the dive shop. Is it on Carlisle beach? My DH is not a diver, can he rent a chair on the beach somewhere close while I dive. Did you book with them in advance or did you just show up that day?

 

Yes it's on Carlisle beach and there's a lovely beach there. I'm not sure if you can rent chairs, but I would guess so. There's a shade tree right next to the Dive Shop so maybe just a beach towel would work. Our original reservation was with Dive Barbados but as it turned out John is contracting with The Dive Shop to use their boats. Yes, we booked in advance.

[scuba214]

Thanks Scubamargie, I wasn't planning on diving in Barbados until I read your post. It's close to the port and on a nice beach so this should work for us!

[scubamargie]

We just got back from a b2b cruise in the Eastern & Southern Caribbean (Nov. 2 - 16). Since I have learned so much from other divers here I'll try to give a fair review of the places we dove and the operators we used.

 

St. Thomas - dove with Admiralty. They picked us up at the Crown Bay pier, a short drive to their shop and then an even shorter boat ride to the dive sites. Only 3 on the boat so a nice small group and a well-equipped, safe boat. We dove a wreck (the Kennedy) and Sponge reef, which were both very nice, but lacking in fish life. I suspect too much fishing here or else the cruise ships are causing the fish shortage. The coral life looked good. Dives were timed so we came up with a lot of air left after the first dive. The second one was nearly an hour dive so that made up for the first dive.

 

Dominica - dove with Nature Island Divers. We usually love this operation but were disappointed this time. We had to wait nearly 2 hours for our first dive (supposedly waiting on divers from the Carnival ship in port). Then they had no water on the boat and didn't return to the shop between dives, so if you use them be sure to bring your own water! The dives were amazing as always -- great sealife, but some coral damage from hurricane Omar. Still an excellent place to dive in the Caribbean. As always we dove our computers.

 

Bonaire - shore diving at Divi Dive Resort (about a block from the pier). Good diving, but Omar created a lot of damage and a lot of the coral was covered with sand. We spent some time trying to upright fan coral and "re-plant" the sponges.

 

Aruba - dove with Clive. Yes, he's a decent operator as far as taking only 6 divers and letting you dive your computer. We were concerned that he didn't leave someone up on the boat (no captain) and he had us do a drift dive without him (which was OK since we are rescue certified, but the inexperienced in our group were a little nervous about that). Not a particularly safe operation. The dives were good although viz was poor on the first (airplane wrecks). The drift dive was much better. Still not much fish life.

 

Barbados - dove with "Dive Barbados" which turned out to be The Dive Shop. An OK operation and close to the port, but we were supposed to have only 6 on the boat and ended up with 10. We had to lug our gear & tanks through the surf to the boat and back -- not an easy feat. The diving was better than we expected. Dive sites were "the Boot" -- very nice coral, turtles, eels; and Asta Reef -- nice reef, turtles, wreck at the end that I would have liked to have had more time on. Drift dives so we all went up when the first person was out of air (bummer).

 

St. Lucia - dove with Dive Fair Helen. A larger operation that kept us waiting 45 minutes at the pier before picking us up. The tanks were in bad shape -- several were unusable because of bad O-rings or knobs, which meant 2 of us had smaller tanks for the last dive (which was OK since it was a very shallow dive). We had to lug our gear (including weights!!) down to the boat (not far). They did provide a yummy lunch, but had promised 8 or less on the boat. We had 12. We requested Superman's Flight but were ignored. Two shallow reefs, although that gave us a lot of bottom time. The diving was very good, but again, not much fish life.

 

Tortola - dove with Aquaventures -- we won't again. A very inexperienced dive master (8 months) took 4 of us out on a small boat (not equipped for diving -- the tanks were stacked in the back), along with a student he was working with. He didn't know the sites very well and didn't check the current. As the first in the water I ended up being swept away by the current and rough seas. After trying to swim against it for several minutes I gave up. They pulled the other diver back in the boat then came and got me. Not fun. The dive sites we actually dove on Cooper Is. were shallow without much to look at. In all fairness we did find a few creatures (eels, shimp, etc.) but after our 2-weeks of diving this was a bit of a let down. We weren't sure the divemaster knew where the boat was at the end of the last dive -- and again, no one was left up topside on the boat. My second tank tasted like oil so I suspect it might have been bad air, but I survived.

 

We aren't picky divers and because of our experience level (300+ dives) we were able to make the best of every situation, but consider carefully how much hand-holding you need before diving with these operators. We missed the professionalism of our usual dive operations in Hawaii & Cozumel.

[Motorcycle Girl]

Thanks for your reviews!

 

I'm sure they will be helpful to me for future trips I might take!

 

:)

[gmcrow]

Thanks for the awesome reviews. We were hoping to avoid that boat in the surf entry and exit thing in Barbados. We did that last year with another operator and thought it was one of the most dangerous things we have ever done. If the surf is as high as last year on the return, we may ask to be dropped off with gear on a little way from shore where it's safe to exit the boat then swim/walk back. Timing the exit from the boat with the waves while carrying gear was scary. One slip and you'd either be hit by the boat, under it, or both.

[scubamargie]

Thanks for the awesome reviews. We were hoping to avoid that boat in the surf entry and exit thing in Barbados. We did that last year with another operator and thought it was one of the most dangerous things we have ever done. If the surf is as high as last year on the return, we may ask to be dropped off with gear on a little way from shore where it's safe to exit the boat then swim/walk back. Timing the exit from the boat with the waves while carrying gear was scary. One slip and you'd either be hit by the boat, under it, or both.

 

Hey that's a good idea about swimming in. It would have been much easier than dragging gear through the surf, and it wasn't even that rough. At the point where we did jump in it was over my head so I ended up swimming the first several feet anyway! It's still worth diving here, but be prepared for a little more work!

[3boyzmom]

We dove St. Thomas (average) and Tortola. Dove the Rhone- it was amazing! We went with Sail Caribbean Divers. The dive master was very aware of who had which certifications, and was able to customize the dive to our levels. My husband and I were fairly new divers at the time, and we were in a different dive group than the more experienced divers. It was an amazing experience I will not forget!

Enjoy.

[cmdchiefthom]

sslkrissi,

 

As much as I hate to say it, I would do the ship's two tank certified SCUBA in Tortola on the Rhone. The dive is a must do there. I'd also suggest, if you have some time before you travel, to rent the movie "The Deep" which in part, was filmed on the wreck. It is a great dive, usually with reasonable currents. If you can dive Antigua from Nelson's Dockyard, there is some excellent rock wall diving just outside the harbor. Not too difficult, 60' max, usually good visibility, but my contact there moved back to Canada.:eek: St. Lucia is the other should do dive, however I also love sailing on the Brig Unicorn from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. That's a great trip, but the diving is even better, just off the Pitons.

 

I love diving the Hospital Ship in St. Thomas with Admirality Divers, but it is a wreck penetration dive, with very severe currents, depending on the tides. Barbados does have a great wreck dive on the Stavronikita, which is fantastic. Not too difficult, but really a great dive.

 

Options, options, options.;)