Saba & St Maarten Dive Trip Report - May 2017

[cleung]

Just got back from a dive trip to Saba and St Maarten in May so I thought that I would post this review. Flew into SXM and cab was $25 to Philipsburg to catch the Dawn II ferry to Saba. Also took the Edge ferry on the return trip which was a better boat but both ferries offered free beers for the 1.5 hour crossings.

Saba Hotel - El Momo Resort

Pros

- relatively inexpensive (was booked through Sea Saba dive/hotel package)
- awesome views of the island and ocean from the room decks
- no worries about mosquitoes as the place was pretty high up on the mountain

Cons

- need to take MANY steep steps up to the resort and to the rooms, few railings so need to be careful especially at night
- bathrooms are external to rooms and use only compose toilets (no tissues can be thrown in)
- no locks on doors so need to bring own lock box/safe although facility is very high up (steps)
- no screens on windows although there wasn't any major flying insect issues
- in addition to steep steps, need to take steep road to Windermere town
- breakfasts were reported to be nothing special and pricey for what you get at the hotel restaurant which does not operate all the time

Conclusion on El Momo

I would not recommend El Momo unless you are okay with many steep steps plus the steep road to town. If you have lots of luggage and scuba gear, you need to bring them up these steps at least for arrival until you can just leave them with the dive operator.


Sea Saba - Dive Shop Used

Pros

- service and advance email communications from Lynn was great as she facilitated transfers from ferry dock as well as hotel to dive boat and back each day
- also helps with any reservations needed with local restaurants plus other travel needs
- best dive boats at Saba
- scuba gear can remain on dive boats for duration of stay
- dive site briefings by divemasters are good and they help change tanks
- dive shop in town has nice selection of divewear
- offers a printout of your dives taken along with dive log data (depth, time, marine life seen)

Cons

- unlike other destinations, divemasters here do not monitor air from divers during dives but ask you to let them know when half tank is up (I did not see any divers actually do this when half tank was up)
- divemasters do not always keep groups together as divers are allowed to go off on their own with their buddies but we did see some divers get separated and go up on their own without the divemasters knowing
- no snacks offered on board dive boats

Conclusion about Sea Saba

My dive buddy and I were experienced divers so the differences with way the divemasters here worked didn't really affect us. But we could see potential safety issues for some divers who are less experienced as we did see a diver go up on his own after running low on air.

The dive sites were pretty good and marine life was healthy. In addition to usual tropical Caribbean fish we saw, we particularly enjoyed the seahorses at Tent Reef which were twice as large as the ones I've seen elsewhere and the tarpons who hung out with us during our safety stops at Ladder Labyrinth. The seas grass section of Tent Reef also had the most sea turtles I've ever seen during any one dive. The pinnacles at Diamond Rock, Third Encounter (Needle) and Man O War were also quite pretty.

Saba is a nice place to dive and if I were to come again, I would use Sea Saba again but not stay at the El Momo.

 

[iamrushman]

very cool.....thanks for sharing your info....pound for pound sounds like you had good weather and a great trip.

 

[drrich2]

Enjoyed your report. Your 'con.s' section has some things many would consider pro.s; less mandatory baby sitting, shifting responsibility for self onto certified diver customers. That said, it would be 'good to know' in advance for very new divers, or those only used to sporadic cruise ship excursion type diving with a lot of hand-holding/monitoring.

Did your hotel have air conditioning? If not, was it hot or warm and muggy, especially at night?

How many dives/day could you do? I ask because aside from walking in the jungle, Saba doesn't sound like a place with a lot of non-diving stuff to do. What sort of maximum and average depths did the dives run? I ask because I'm under the impression diving the pinnacles tends to be deep (IIRC from reading). Diving Turks & Caicos is often cited as deep, as the wall starts deep; I'm curious as to whether diving Saba is likewise pretty deep diving on average - good to know info. for airhogs, newbies, people without prior deep experience, etc...

Richard.

 

[cleung]

Enjoyed your report. Your 'con.s' section has some things many would consider pro.s; less mandatory baby sitting, shifting responsibility for self onto certified diver customers. That said, it would be 'good to know' in advance for very new divers, or those only used to sporadic cruise ship excursion type diving with a lot of hand-holding/monitoring.

Did your hotel have air conditioning? If not, was it hot or warm and muggy, especially at night?

How many dives/day could you do? I ask because aside from walking in the jungle, Saba doesn't sound like a place with a lot of non-diving stuff to do. What sort of maximum and average depths did the dives run? I ask because I'm under the impression diving the pinnacles tends to be deep (IIRC from reading). Diving Turks & Caicos is often cited as deep, as the wall starts deep; I'm curious as to whether diving Saba is likewise pretty deep diving on average - good to know info. for airhogs, newbies, people without prior deep experience, etc...

Richard.

Two of the dives we did, Third Encounter (the Needle) and Customs House were 110 and 100 foot dives respectively. The rest were average 70 feet at max depth. We did three dives per day.

Other than diving and hiking, there's really nothing else to do in Saba. As a result, it's not a busy place at all with no crowds anywhere.

The El Momo hotel was basically a bunch of cottages on a mountainside and no AC. Being that high up, there was a nice breeze most of the time and the days we were there were overcast so it was not too hot nor muggy. This seemed to limit the flying bugs.

 

[howswedeofme]

We dove with Sea Saba in January and I agree that underwater they are more hands-off than in some other places. It is less of a cruise-diver type of place, though, so that may be why. I would expect ops on places like Grand Cayman or Cozumel to be more hand-holdy because they often get people who do one 2-tank dive a year and that's it. We had a few newbies with us on Saba, but the majority of the people on the boats were Saba loyalists who dove there every year. The very very new newbies were watched pretty closely by the DMs, and the DMs asked the other divers to watch out for them, as well. I didn't feel like anything that was done at any point in time was unsafe. I did let our DM know when I was half tank like they asked us to do top side, but we were never very far from the boat so it didn't really matter much. I'm also not an air hog (anymore), so my buddy and I were usually close to the last people under. The DM always stayed down until the last group went up. You could do four dives a day if you did the morning 2-tank, the afternoon 1-tank, and a night dive. We did a night dive twice and the afternoon tank once. The night dives are INCREDIBLE. We did one at Tent Reef and one at Hot Springs. Both sites are very active at night. The dives do average out to be a little deeper. We weren't huge fans of the very deep dives just for the sake of diving deep. Eye of the Needle/Third Encounter was neat to see, but the top of the pinnacle is at 100 feet, so it was a very short dive. We crossed seeing a pinnacle off our list and didn't care if we went to another after that. We asked for more intermediate depths (70-80ish max depth for first dive, 50-65 for second) after that because we'd rather have more bottom time, and the boat we were on accommodated that. I agree about the sea grass area on Tent Reef - it was just covered in lazy turtles! We loved it. We went in January and didn't use the a/c at all. It was actually pretty cool at night (70F with pretty significant winds) so we all wore long sleeves and/or pants around the house or out to dinner.