Hows the Diving in Aruba ?

[vapovick]

I am a new diver and have a chance to goto Aruba. We were first planning a trip to Cozumel, but have come across a great deal in Aruba. My questions are :


1. What is the vis like in Aruba?

2. How is the diving compared to Cozumel ?

3. Is it drift diving in Aruba ? I see they have a llot of wrecks to offer, but I was more interested in reefs/walls ...
Can someone with info fill me in on that?


4. If you could go on a trip,. would you rather goto Aruba, or Cozumel?


./thanks....

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

Going to Aruba for the third time April10-24. The vis at the west end of the island is about 50-70 ft. It is about 80-90 ft. at the east end away from the major hotel area.
there isn't any wall diving. The reefs at the west end are nothing to write home about. A little better at the east end. The dive depths range from 20 ft. to 100 ft. most of the dives are about 60 to 80 ft. The is almost no current or surge. The big draw for Aruba is the Wrecks. The average price is $55.00 for a 2 tank dive. I haven't been to Cozumel but from researching a trip there it is quite a bit more expensive?? My thing is Wrecks so Aruba would be a better choice for me. Also my wife is a non diver? and there is more non dive stuff to do on Aruba.

 

[Dive4air]

I am going to Aruba...first time. Never been to Cozumel, but everybody I asked says Aruba is very nice also and the wrecks are great. It doesn't get as much publicity as the others, but think about it this way, it's a hop away from Curacao and Bonaire and they are top spot destinations.

Anyway, I don't know when your trip is, but I'll be posting a review when I get back on the 22nd.

 

[mike_s]

1. What is the vis like in Aruba?

2. How is the diving compared to Cozumel ?

3. Is it drift diving in Aruba ? I see they have a llot of wrecks to offer, but I was more interested in reefs/walls ...
Can someone with info fill me in on that?


4. If you could go on a trip,. would you rather goto Aruba, or Cozumel?

1.) The vis on my trip there was good, but there seemed to be a lot of "particulate" in the water, which limited vis to 30 to 50'. still not "bad".

2.) Cozumel has better diving, hands down, but they are two different places. The diving in Aruba isn't that bad though.

3.) No drift diving there. Just two major areas of diving. The "south side" and the "west side". The south is mostly reefs with a few small wrecks and a plane. The west side is reefs and a few other wrecks. The biggest wreck is the Antilla which is 400' long and in 55 feet of water. Great wreck dive for any level of diver. There are plenty of reefs, but I didn't see much if any of any "walls" in Aruba.

4.) If I could go on a trip either would be great. Cozumel has better diving, but Aruba is a nicer island that is much more modern. Of course Cozumel has it's own niceness and some of the items there add to their "culture" of the islanders. But in Aruba you don't have people hassleing you as you pass each storefront either.



Most of the hotels are on the west side also FYI.

-Mike

 

[blawler1]

My wife and I did some shore diving last year on Aruba. We downloaded the site information from www.shorediving.com. The vis was average, not three digits like Cozumel, but the water was a toasty 85 degrees in the middle of November. As mentioned earlier the wrecks are the big attraction in Aruba.

I will say that diving aside, I like Aruba more as a destination than Cozumel. While its generally a little more expensive, Cozumel, with the insane number of cruiseships it is receiving is getting more expensive every time as they are tapping the "cruzaros" and it is rapidly losing its charm. There were 13 cruise boats in port at one point when we went in December and it was utter kaos on the main drag because they had one side of the street dug up for repairs.

 

[ronrosa]

I am a new diver and have a chance to goto Aruba. We were first planning a trip to Cozumel, but have come across a great deal in Aruba. My questions are :


1. What is the vis like in Aruba?

2. How is the diving compared to Cozumel ?

3. Is it drift diving in Aruba ? I see they have a llot of wrecks to offer, but I was more interested in reefs/walls ...
Can someone with info fill me in on that?


4. If you could go on a trip,. would you rather goto Aruba, or Cozumel?


./thanks....

Spent a week there this past June.

1. 60-80 ft.

2. Diving was good, but no where as good as Cozumel.

3. No drift diving in Aruba. At least not on the dives I did. Aruba diving is all about the wrecks.

4. I really liked Aruba. Plenty of things to do in addition to diving. If I wanted a well rounded vacation, Aruba is the easy choice. If I wanted to dive 2 tanks a day, everyday, Cozumel is the easy choice.

Do you have a highspeed internet connection ?

I have videos of both Aruba and Cozumel on my website. You can download the videos to get an idea of what the diving is like.

http://www.ronrosa.com/ron/scuba.htm

 

[mike_s]

I will say that diving aside, I like Aruba more as a destination than Cozumel. While its generally a little more expensive, Cozumel, with the insane number of cruiseships it is receiving is getting more expensive every time as they are tapping the "cruzaros" and it is rapidly losing its charm. There were 13 cruise boats in port at one point when we went in December and it was utter kaos on the main drag because they had one side of the street dug up for repairs.

I agree 100%. Aruba is much nicer and the cruise boats are ruining Cozumel. Now Aruba still gets some cruise boats, but near as many as Cozumel, where they are dumping up to 20,000 easy extra tourists on the street there.

The store owners love it because all the extra customers, but they have also gotten agressive with those pestering idiots they employ out front ot get you in the stores.

It's also caused prices to skyrocket over years ago. It used to be cheap to go to Cozumel. But not anymore.

Aruba is much nicer, has nicer hotels, etc. (of course the diving is better in Coz)

 

[mle_osu]

I have videos of both Aruba and Cozumel on my website. You can download the videos to get an idea of what the diving is like.

http://www.ronrosa.com/ron/scuba.htm

Kudos on the Videos! Great work... it has become my temporary releif of my scuba diving needs! Makes me want my trip to get here even faster!!

Hopefully we can get some of our videos edited (amonng all the other editing we have to do - as it is my mothers profession) and get them on a website too.

Again, great job!

 

[ronrosa]

Kudos on the Videos! Great work... it has become my temporary releif of my scuba diving needs! Makes me want my trip to get here even faster!!

Hopefully we can get some of our videos edited (amonng all the other editing we have to do - as it is my mothers profession) and get them on a website too.

Again, great job!

Thanks for the kind words.

Being a warm water only diver and living in NYC, my videos give me a "fix" during the long stretches between dive trips.

Get your videos edited and up on a website soon. My next dive isn't until June and I'm getting tired of watching my same videos over and over again. In addition, watching other people's videos is a great way for us to learn from each other.

Ron

 

[Damselfish]

I am going to Aruba...first time. Never been to Cozumel, but everybody I asked says Aruba is very nice also and the wrecks are great. It doesn't get as much publicity as the others, but think about it this way, it's a hop away from Curacao and Bonaire and they are top spot destinations.

the fact that Aruba is close to Bonaire and Curacao doesn't necessarily mean much, there's other islands in the Caribean that are close but have very different quality or type of diving.

I read something once on why the diving was so different on Aruba that the other 2 even though they're close, the idea was they are located very differently relative to the continental shelf. Aruba is surrounded by relatively shallow water, Curacao is on the edge of the really deep water, and Bonaire is surrounded by the deep water. Not that you're diving that deep! But you can see this if you can find a bathymetric chart of the area and it's sort of interesting, the UW topology is very different for each.