george w
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Thinking of a vacation to Antigua Anybody know how the diving is. Thanks
Antigua
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heading there next Week to the Sandals resort. I will post back what I find. We might go off resort for one of the dives...
Never done it myself, but my understanding is that is not primarily known as a dive destination. Happy to be corrected by anyone who's been.
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Hope this helps some: The complete Antigua scuba diving guide covering dive sites and dive centres
Waaay back (1990) when I was newly certified and had all of 8 dives, I went to Antiqua on my honeymoon. I dove with Dive Antiqua. Big John owned it and still does apparently...
diveantigua.com
I have nothing but good memories from diving with Big John, a really nice, personable, and laid back guy. Very small dive group of 2 plus Big John and his DM! and he went out of his way to show me everything he could find. He also wrote on a slate to explain things I was looking at. Kind of a mini-marine biology dive and he seemed to know his stuff. Really fun and informative. Saw lots of fish and they were slow easy dives.
I went back to Antiqua 3 yrs later and dove with him again. It was still a great experience with Dive Antiqua but I noticed that a lot of the fish were "gone", having been fished for food! I have a note saying that the fish were being caught in fish traps. Diving was so-so.
Now 20 yrs later, hard to say what you'll find diving there. If I was to go back, I would not hesitate to look up Big John and take a dive, but I would not go to Antigua for a dive vacation. It would have to be a vacation with a little diving... Don't go with big expectations.
diveantigua.com
I have nothing but good memories from diving with Big John, a really nice, personable, and laid back guy. Very small dive group of 2 plus Big John and his DM! and he went out of his way to show me everything he could find. He also wrote on a slate to explain things I was looking at. Kind of a mini-marine biology dive and he seemed to know his stuff. Really fun and informative. Saw lots of fish and they were slow easy dives.
I went back to Antiqua 3 yrs later and dove with him again. It was still a great experience with Dive Antiqua but I noticed that a lot of the fish were "gone", having been fished for food! I have a note saying that the fish were being caught in fish traps. Diving was so-so.
Now 20 yrs later, hard to say what you'll find diving there. If I was to go back, I would not hesitate to look up Big John and take a dive, but I would not go to Antigua for a dive vacation. It would have to be a vacation with a little diving... Don't go with big expectations.
Got back late last night/early this morning.
We dove out of Sandals.
If you go there, you will have to do the orientation. Period. It doesn't matter that we dove 2 weeks prior. It is a good thing overall and for all.
There is a lot of dead/broken coral from the last hurricane... however....
The reefs are starting to recover and there is marine life galore...
We saw a nurse shark, spotted moray eel, some saw a blacktip reef shark, a turtle, trumpet fish, lots of yummy lobster, plus all the other fish....and... wait for it...
a nice 9-10 foot hammer head decided to swim by us no more than 20 feet away...
I got a pick, but it wasnt the best... he caught us all off guard. We saw him at Billy's Grotto.
Sandals did a few "deep dives" (50+ feet) a few mid dives (40-45) and only one like one or two 30 foot fives. Do the 2 tank 7am dive or you will be going out at 11:30 with all the discover scuba diving people and doing only a 30 foot dive. We will be going back! I manged to get a pic, not not a great one.
We dove out of Sandals.
If you go there, you will have to do the orientation. Period. It doesn't matter that we dove 2 weeks prior. It is a good thing overall and for all.
There is a lot of dead/broken coral from the last hurricane... however....
The reefs are starting to recover and there is marine life galore...
We saw a nurse shark, spotted moray eel, some saw a blacktip reef shark, a turtle, trumpet fish, lots of yummy lobster, plus all the other fish....and... wait for it...
a nice 9-10 foot hammer head decided to swim by us no more than 20 feet away...
I got a pick, but it wasnt the best... he caught us all off guard. We saw him at Billy's Grotto.
Sandals did a few "deep dives" (50+ feet) a few mid dives (40-45) and only one like one or two 30 foot fives. Do the 2 tank 7am dive or you will be going out at 11:30 with all the discover scuba diving people and doing only a 30 foot dive. We will be going back! I manged to get a pic, not not a great one.
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If you want to dive in Antigua you should really head down to English harbour and go out with one of the shops there, Aquanauts or Soul Immersions are both good and will take you to the best sites on the island.
There are a couple of really good sites, unfortunately they are weather dependant. There is always at least a reasonable site available under any conditions.
I think the bad rep for diving mainly comes from diving the resorts or cades reef when it's been blown off. A bit of swell will muck the vis right up, and boats from jolly harbour or carlisle bay won't go further than that.
There are a couple of really good sites, unfortunately they are weather dependant. There is always at least a reasonable site available under any conditions.
I think the bad rep for diving mainly comes from diving the resorts or cades reef when it's been blown off. A bit of swell will muck the vis right up, and boats from jolly harbour or carlisle bay won't go further than that.
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