Any diving in Suriname?

[ROMO DIVER]

I had a student ask me about diving in Suriname and I had nothing to tell him except that I would ask the SCUBA gods.

This new diver will be there for a couple of months as part of the Air Guard and wanted to get some diving in if at all possible.

Has anyone had the opportunity to dive Suriname and is there anything to see besides the German ship in the river. Also, are there any dive shops.

Thanks for your help.

 

[lukaswetzel]

Hey,

I am currently in Paramaribo, Suriname and would also be interested in some information as regards diving here. Did you are your students find anything out?

Best regards,

Lukas

 

[ROMO DIVER]

Not a word. I am suprised that the Scubaboard community has not had something to say about this. I didn't think there was anything they would not chime in on. Oh well....

 

[quitzalcoatl]

very late reply but it might be of help for anyone looking into diving in Suriname ever. Let me kill those dreams: there is no diving in Suriname, except for professional companies cleaning/repairing boats and those illegally sticking drugs to the bottom of those boats.

There have been a few scuba diving expeditions in the past (one from the great grandson of an explorer called Eilerts de Haan, one from National Geographic and one time a scuba school from the Netherlands. They dived in a submerged valley (now a lake) but the viz is extremely bad and other than piranhas, there is not much to see (Reizen - Alles over de duiksport lees je in Duiken!). They all gave up and never repeated that trip again.

You can find some references on the internet that there is unofficial diving at the Goslar wreck but having lived here for 20+ years I've never heard of anyone actually doing it. It would be also be extremely dangerous seeing as though the viz is horribly bad (probably less than 1 meter) and there are some pretty dangerous whirlpools around the wreck.

Finally, thanks to the couple of mud banks we have in front of our coast line there is no clear sea water and makes salt water diving virtually impossible.