16 Scubaboarders in Saba

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Walter

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Messages
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Location
Lehigh Acres, Florida
There were 16 of us diving with Sea Saba and staying at Juliana's this past week. We were scheduled to arrive on June 7 and return home on June 14. Because the Dawn II ferry was pulled out for dry dock after several of our members had already booked and paid for their trip (nothing crucial, they scheduled the dry dock in advance), ten of our group didn't arrive until June 8.

Sea Saba is probably the best dive operator I've ever used in all the years I've been diving. They did all the things you'd expect a good dive operator to do and then some. They had a taxi meet us at the airport or dock (depending on each person's mode of travel), they had a taxi pick us up every morning to take us to the dive boat and bring us back to the hotel when diving was finished (that was three trips per day because some folks dived the morning only, while others dived morning and afternoon). They made reservations for dinner (after telling us who had what specials that day). The crew was excellent. We dived with Tom, Troy, Kat and Kelly (usually three crew per trip) and dealt with Lynn, John and Lauren in the shop. They crew and shop staff were very helpful and very friendly.

Several of our group reached landmark dives for which we presented hand made dive flags signed by everyone in our group plus the Sea Saba staff. The folks at Sea Saba went out of their way to make those dives special, even making a banner and presenting us with a cake.

Sea Saba, you are a great operation with a fabulous staff, thanks for everything!

Juliana's is an excellent place to stay on Saba. The staff is very friendly and very helpful. The Tropic opens for breakfast at 7 every morning, but several of us had to leave early on Saturday to catch a plane or boat, so they opened to serve us at 5:30. Juliana's is a great place to stay and I'd especially like to thank Wim, Johanna, and Karen for everything!

Saba is a tiny island (5.1 sq miles) and everyone I encountered was extremely friendly. The island is a volcano with beautiful views every where. Several of us hiked up Mount Scenery (the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands) and were given certificates for the accomplishment. Brian hiked up twice and that one place will forever be known (to the folks in our group) as Point Brian.

The taxi drivers, Peddy and Garvis, were wonderful! They not only drove us around the island, they told us about the island's history and pointed out pointsw of interest. Thanks for everything, guys!

The dive sites were very cool. Visibility was excellent, usually 70 - 100+ feet. There are more fish on the reefs in Florida, but the topography is amazing. We saw many Green Turtles and a couple Hawksbills along with several sharks (mostly Nurse, but at least three different Caribbean Reef Sharks were spotted by folks in the group).

I highly recommend visiting Saba (I want to go back) and whilke you're there, diving with Sea Saba and staying at Juliana's.

Dive sites we visited (not including the three sites folks dived on Friday - I was off gassing) were:

Babylon depth - 110' viz 100' Lots of Garden Eels.

Greer Gut depth - 73' viz - 80' Lots of Yellowhead Jawfish.

Ladder Labyrinth depth - 61' viz - 100' Cool topography with a tiny yellow Seahorse.

Core Gut depth - 101' viz - 100' Marvel's 400th dive and CoolTech's 700th - great wall!

Diamond Rock depth - 81' viz - 90' Huge rock sticking up out of the sand, very interesting dive!

Tent Reef depth - 62' viz - 90' Moderately strong current, but a cool site with overhangs and swim throughs.

Third Encounter depth - 108' viz - 50' Worst viz of the trip, but a cool dive none the less.

Man O' War depth - 66' viz - 100' Really interesting topography with Black Coral and a visit from a 5' Caribbean Reef Shark.

Hot Springs depth - 54' viz - 80' An old Anchor (the type on Popeye's arm) and a couple of Seahorses were the highlights of this site.

Outer Limits depth - 110' viz - 80' Krista's 300th dive - very beautiful coral.

David's Drop Off depth - 62' viz - 70' Interesting topography.

Torren's Point depth - 35' viz - 70' lil' Castaway's 100th, Dennis W's 200th - swimming around the rock is groovy!

Third Encounter depth - 105' viz - 80' Redemption dive, saw the needle this time, very beautiful site.

Tent Wall depth - 79' viz - 100' Very sheer wall with small ledges sticking out here and there. In shou=re of the wall is an area of sand with many Razorfish.

Ladder Labyrinth depth - 49' viz - 100'
 
Several of our group reached landmark dives for which we presented hand made dive flags signed by everyone in our group plus the Sea Saba staff. The folks at Sea Saba went out of their way to make those dives special, even making a banner and presenting us with a cake.

SABAJune2008146.jpg
 
SABAJune2008076.jpg


Marvel, MaryAnn and Kbeck... Anyone mind if I make this my profile image (Like I said I would before we shot it)?
 
A wonderful trip!! And on that first Third Encounter dive, Walter accomplished his 2000th dive. It was fun. I will get a chance to play with my pics next weekend and I will post the one's that are worth posting then.

Right now, I am in Sebastian and my regs and BCs are soaking.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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