flyking12:
Just 3 weeks away from our trip to Tobago. Can't wait! My daughter and and I have just recently completed our ow certification and are therefore newbies. I have researched a lot on the dive sites, but could I get a few personal opinions about sites appropriate for new divers? We want to be safe but challenged and would really like to try the drift diving, but is there drift diving for new divers
Depending upon how old your daughter is- and how comfortable you are in the water, I would suggest that you stay near the airport and dive one of the ops near Pigeon Point.
I have never dived Scarborough. I do know that the Ocean puts on quite a show there with fierce waves and posted warnings. Maybe they have easy diving- but most "hondo" divers go to Speyside/Charlottesville, so that's where I've been.
But you're going to Speyside... which is the rough equivelant of getting out of driver's education in High School and driving a BMW on the Autobahn.
My SO & dive buddy wanted to dive the Galapagos, so she began by getting her certification at CoCoView where she logged 75 simple bathtub dives in three weeks. We went to Tobago next so she could experience small boats, back rolls, drift diving protocol, surface recovery techniques, re-boarding methods (including taking off her BC and handing it up). She learned to inflate her safety sausage from a depth of 25' and hung on an attached cord at 17' doing a safety stop while waiting for the pickup of the dive boat. Very few people even have their safety sausage rigged with appropriate line- they don't come that way.
Many ops near Speyside/Charlottesville require a thrash thru the surf to get to the boats. Some ops have piers: The dive op at Blue Waters Inn and I believe one other. All have access to drift diving and real challenges. Will a dive op take you to an easy breezy dive? Maybe once at the beginning of the week, but then the other guests will want the wild currents that Tobago is really known for. You will be sucked along--- ready or not. This is what dive accidents are made of.
Maybe the best thing you could do is pick a small operator such as RedMan and explain your experience and concerns to hime with great care. Hire his son as DM (not all that expensive and well worth the safety factor) to watch over you and your daughter. In that they are small, if they have few other divers, they can do a double drop- Leon takes you toi someplace survivable, and RedMan can handle the other clients. Maybe smaller is better.
Other posters have mentioned Japaneese Gardens. Add to the list sites called Washing Machine and African Express. This list would be titled: I MUST NOT GO HERE.
I was diving AfEx with the editor of the PADI UK magazine. We actualy clocked the current at 4.5 mph. This was like diving in a grade 6 whitewater rapid. We were tumbling thru the slot, there was so much air in the water we didn't float. Are you ready for down currents that can suck you down 60' below in a matter of seconds? Who is? This can be twitchy.
Until you are prepared both in terms of training and previsualization (and knowing what that means to avert panic while diving) to cope with surface rescue techniques--- stay with simpler things. This is not a jolly ride on the warm blue Caribbean- this has resulted (for some unlucky few) in a prolonged surface float of over 24 hours. I'm not saying it's going to happen- but can you say you're ready for it if it does? You may handle your own problems- are you ready to assist a child?
Hate to come off negative on this, I believe that Tobago is in the top 5 dive destinations in the Caribbean- but it simply isn't for the inexperienced.
