Looking for advice

Hi all,
Glad to have found this sight!! My wife and I travel quite a bit and have been doing most of our dives in Asia but are lloking to take our next adventure to the Carribean in March of 2002. There are so many islands... we just don't know enough about them. We would appreciate any input. We are looking for a place that would be enjoyable on land as we would stay in the area for at least a week. Thanks Darren

Hello Darren,
Like you I am glad to find this site. It is a very informational site. As to the islands in the caribbean, boy have you go a lot to choose from. It all depends on what you are looking for in your diving and the land excursions. My wife(Flo) and I(Burt) have been diving about 5+ years. Our favorite island is Cozumel. The island is very safe, it has many resturants, shopping and things on the island to do and tour. It also offers a quick trip to the mainland(30 min ferry ride. A brand new $12 million ferry i might add). On the mainland there is cenote diving, cave diving, more tours, resort type parks and Cancun(if you like). The diving on Cozumel is wonderful. It is drift diving which means you don't exert yourself so your bottom time is more than normal. We stay at Fiesta Americana and dive with Dive House. The hotel is on the southern end of the island and the dive shop is directly across the street. They are both very good operations. http://www.fiestaamericana.com/frameset_fa_hotels.asp?hotel=6&lang=EN

We also love Little Cayman. This is a very relaxed undeveloped island. We stayed at Little Cayman Beach Resort and dove with Conch Club Divers. LCBR has their own dive shop called Divers Reef but we chose to dive with Conch Club. The diving is wonderful. The island has little to offer as to night life but lots happening at LCBR. As I said the island is undeveloped. You can tour the island in less than a day. Everything you need is at LCBR. We highly reccommend the meal packase at LCBR. They will gourmet you to death.
Other Islands? Bonaire is great, lots of shore diving availability(80+ sites) as well as boat diving on Klein Bonaire(as small island off of Bonaire). We stayed at Buddy's Dive Resort and booked the 3D(Dive,Dine & Drive) package which includes diving, breakfast and a truck for travel and shore diving. They also have a drive up air fill that is quite nice. The town is small, but with the truck you can see the many sights the island has to offer.
Well there are many many more to choose from. These are our favorites. Good luck. Keep in touch and safe diving.
Burt & Flo Jackson
Danville, Virginia

Hey, Darren,

What Burt said about Cozumel is God's own Truth! It is relatively close to CA, has wonderful diving and represents tremendous value in terms of dollars. If you live in NorCal, you can fly to Houston and then non-stop to Cozumel on Continental. From SoCal should be similar...

I do not know where you have dived in Asia--Thailand? Fiji???--but the diving in the Carib can be quite different.

The Antilles can be very adventurous--we loved Saba and we liked St. Kitts-Nevis. St. Vincent is a little longer plane ride, but worth it. St. Maarten is not really a good place to dive, but has fantastic beaches. The Turks and Caicos have nice diving and you might want to consider a live-aboard for there.

The Bahamas can vary from the super resort atmosphere of New Providence to the more laid back atmospheres of Eleutera or Grand Bahama Is. If you go to the Bahamas, try one of the shark dives: Stuart Cove's and Walkers Cay are fantastic. I guarantee that you will never forget them!

The US Virgin Islands are nice--we liked the west end of St. Thomas and the wall dives of St. Croix.

We were not fond of Grand Cayman or Cayman Brac, but others are. What Burt said about Little Cayman we have also heard, but we have not gone there.

So, if you ask me to distill the above thoughts to two recommendations, I would say (1) Cozumel and (2) Saba (We just got back from our first trip there and it has become our favorite site in the Antilles).

Joewr

Cozumel has beautiful diving. You can go to the mainland and dive in a cenote and then explore the ruins. Cozumel is very inexpensive and the marine life that you will see is just like that at other dive spots in the Carribean. And the swim throughs....AAAHHHH the gorgeous swim throughs.......

In St. Kitts/Nevis, did you dive w/ Ellis at Scuba Safaris?

Mr. DD,

Nope. We dove with boys of St. Kitts Scuba--located at the base of Bird Rock Beach Hotel. Small boat and good DM. Not a lot of dive sites, but worth a week or so. Not a lot of beautiful reefs, but some great fish collections at relatively recent wrecks.

We will probably not go back, but we are glad we went. Try the Mango Cafe for an excellent Roti.

Your gourmet scuba critic,

Joewr