St. Maarten Information Needed.

[nagel]

We are heading out on a new adventure in August 2017 to the island of St. Maarten. We have never been there although we have an extensive dive resume of all the traditional dive locations - Mexico, Bonaire, Roatan, etc. (We understand the basic of Dive Travel Vacations). Anyway, looking for any and all information others might have on St. Maarten. We are staying at the Belair Beach Hotel using part of our time share.

Any info is appreciated since this is entirely new to us. Specifically, any information on the diving and dive operators is what we are looking at trying to book our diving.


Thanks in advance,

Snagel

 

[Wookie]

St. Maarten isn't exactly a dive destination. Are you sure you don't want to head over to Saba?

 

[nagel]

Hmmmm. We are going to St. Maarten really only because we got a "deal" with our Time Share; so, cannot really change that. If however, there's an option to take a skip over to Saba for a day trip or something like that we might think about that.

Thanks for the Thought

 

[The Chairman]

Listen to the @Wookie! Head over to Saba while you're there. AND... don't forget to load up on Guava Berry Rum while in Sint Maarten. YUM!!! I'll send you my address where you can send me a bottle to thank me.

 

[Wookie]

Well, there is a shop in St. Maarten, used to be owned by friends of mine, Ocean Explorers. Reefs tend to be patch reefs, and in the lee of St. Maarten. If the weather is decent, there are some offshore pinnacles, but remember, you are facing the Atlantic Ocean in St. Maarten.

I know nothing about Caribbean Dive College or Octopus Diving.

I like St. Maarten, but I don't go there to dive.

 

[Wookie]

Listen to the @Wookie! Head over to Saba while you're there. AND... don't forget to load up on Guava Berry Rum while in Sint Maarten. YUM!!! I'll send you my address where you can send me a bottle to thank me.

You like that stuff? I have vintage bottles, cause no one here likes it. I will bring some along.

 

[The Chairman]

You like that stuff?

You da man.

 

[jonhall]

You can find a few threads on SB with info about St. Maarten. The first time I went, I stayed in Simpson Bay area and dove with Ocean Explorers which is also located there. The wrecks in the area were good dives but overall not a lot of reef to explore (lots of sandy bottom.) If I had used that trip alone to judge St. Maarten, I wouldn't have ranked it high on my list of places to go for diving. Thank goodness I went again, staying near the town of Phillipsburg, and dove with Scuba Fun in Great Bay close to where the cruise ships are. I really enjoyed the dives out of Great Bay with sharks on all but a couple of dives and much more on the ocean floor to explore.

but remember, you are facing the Atlantic Ocean in St. Maarten.

Isn't the south (and west) side of St. Maarten facing the Caribbean and St. Martin facing the Atlantic with the Great Bay area kind of a mix of the two?

We are staying at the Belair Beach Hotel using part of our time share.

We used our time share at Belair Beach for a week and really liked it. We are going back to Belair the end of Sept. for a couple of weeks. The dive ops along the Great Bay marina's are about a 5-7 minute drive. You may have to pay a buck or 2 to park, but you will be inside a fenced area. Scuba Fun was a nice op, but they do get a lot of cruise ship customers, as maybe all of the ops in this area do. They also take care of your gear and lock it up at night. Divi which is next door to Belair Beach has a hut on the beach where you can also set up dives. Can't remember who the dive op actually is - maybe Ocean Explorers. Didn't do any dives with them, but it was cheaper to rent jet skis there than from Belair Beach. There is a shore dive that can be done along the southeast end of Little Bay which is where Belair Beach is. There are some pieces of scrap from a helicopter and plane in what is a protected marine park. Not a great dive, but something different.

Belair Beach has the nicest beach I've been on at a resort. White sand, calm water, and when you check in and get your room number, hurry to the beach area and you can get lounge chairs assigned to you for the week. No-one else gets to use them. Although BB has a restaurant, we went to Divi (a 2-3 minute walk) several times to eat and even got pizza to take back to our room one night.

Are you sure you don't want to head over to Saba?

One thing I have decided is that even though we go where our timeshare and our friend's vacation club takes us, when there is an opportunity to explore, I'm going to take it. Plan to get to Saba this time!

 

[Damselfish]

Last April we dove St Kitts and Saba from the CE2, then did a couple days of diving on St Maarten since we were there anyway. Perhaps it was a fluke of poor conditions and hiccups at Saba and unusually good conditions on St Maarten, but St Maarten was unexpectedly the the best diving of that trip. We left from Great Bay and dove more exposed sites they say can't do often. (The DM seemed pretty excited to do it, actually too excited and trying to cover too much ground but that's a different story.) Good viz and sharky and a fair amount of stuff to see. One area was the "Where's Waldo" of lost encrusted anchors. So there is at least hope to get some good diving there.

 

[DeputyDan]

When I visited there and dove we used Octopus Diving on the French side.
They were fine when we used them but is has been several years!

The web site indicates a Dutch side location now.

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