Caribbean Opinion

[DiverDown11]

Greetings,

Im new to the message boards and relatively new to diving.

Going on a cruise soon, and am confronted with choosing only a couple of the destinations for diving:

Princess Cays
St Thomas
Dominica
Barbados
Isla Margarita
Curacao

Can anyone rate these sites from best to worst in terms of diving? Ive done my share of wrecks and reef. Right now Im looking for Macro Life, or something different but labeled a must see. At any rate, if anyone could highly recommend one over the other it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

~peter

 

[caymaniac]

Of your list , I would rate the top site as Dominica.

Dive safe,
Caymaniac

 

[richhagelin]

I concur that Dominica diving is good. Don't even bother at "Princess Cays". St Thomas is OK, but not great. Don't know about the other destinations.

Rich Hagelin

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

I have only dove St. Thomas on that list. Okay diving. Good vis. Nothing real deep. Try this thread for Dominica info:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7014&highlight=Dominica+trip+report

Good Luck!

 

[The Silverback]

Just did 10 dives in Barbados, some really great stuff if Wreks are your thing dont miss the "Stavronakita" 80-130 feet or the "Pamir" 45-55 feet great entry level wreck dives. Reffs? try Brights ledge

 

[DiverDown11]

Thanks for all your input!

Was wondering if anyone has done the mushroom forest and the cave in curacao?

regards.

 

[jbuchow]

On your list, I would vote for Dominica.

I dove for 4 days in Curacao a year ago, and was less than impressed. Undoubtedly part of it was our dive operator --Carribean Sea Sports attached to the Marriott -- but some of the dive sites had dead coral, not a whole of fish, and quite a bit of refuse/tires/bottles/fishing line. Some of the dives were fun (the tug boat, the wreck in the harbor, etc), and to be fair, we did not dive the mushroom forest or the cave, which I hear, are spectacular dives. As to CSS, they cut our dives short (some only 20 minutes!), they considered the mostly-dead reef off the property a boat dive, etc.

All in all, the difference between Curacao and Bonaire (both in terms of the actual dives and the dive operation) was rather remarkable, considering how close they are geographically.

Jacob

 

[Doc]

you're new to message boards.

Look on this Caribbean and on the Central American board for lengthy discussions regarding Cruise Ship ports and how the just don't seem to take you near decent diving.

Use the search engine.
Don't go on cruises.
Send her on a cruise with her girlfriends.
What happens on the cruise ship, stays on the cruise ship.

Go diving.

 

[scorpiofish]

Princess Cays - No information
St Thomas - Average
Dominica - Excellent
Barbados - Not good
Isla Margarita - No information
Curacao - One of my favorite places to dive

Dominica and Curacao stand above the rest.

 

[Damselfish]

I like it enough that I've been there 5 times. But it's not like Bonaire where you can pretty much ensure good dives by picking a random operator or falling in the water someplace. Need to use a good dive op that takes you to the right places - which do look alot like Bonaire.

We've usually dived with Habitat but it's a ways from town (~half hour). Between that and their boat schedule and your cruise schedule that might not work. But it could be worth taking a cab out there, shore dive and hang out for the day on your own schedule. (I'm assuming you can pay for a day of shore diving there.) Great shore diving right there with good facilities.

I've started to hear good things about diving at Sunset Waters but that's twice as far from town. Lion's Dive has an ok dive op that's more convienient to town. You can shore dive from there too, but I wouldn't if I had another choice.