Leaving for St Maarten May 1 - Looking for dive op recommendations

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dvleemin

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Location
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Hi All,
We'll be heading to St Maarten for a week on May 1, and am looking for Dive Op recommendations. We tend to like small dive ops, and avoid the cattle boats with prejudice. We're somewhat experienced divers with over 200 dives, and I also am an UW photographer. We're more interested in a dive op that takes us to great places and lets us dive, than a full service that gives you gourmet lunches, and has 3 people on board to handle your equipment.

So given these specs, any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Darryl
 
Also recommending Octopus Diving. Sally, one of the owners is a very good UW photographer. As mentioned above they are a more personal operation, they take out six divers max per boat. They also go to lots of different spots on both sides of the island, including some places they have found that no one else ever dives. In the interest of full disclosure, I am doing my divemaster internship with them, but have used the shop since before Chris and Sally owned it and they've really turned it into a top-notch operation.

They only have water and orange slices on the boat, and there are only two people on the boat to handle your equipment! But no one will stop you from setting up your own gear if you want. They do offer a high level of service so customers can just enjoy the diving. If you're here for a week and want to dive a bunch of different sites, I think they would be a great choice.
 
Thanks Everyone.

We'll be staying at Oyster Bay resort. I believe it's on the Dutch side, and Octopus diving is on the French side. Is that an issue? We'll have a rental car - how would it take to drive there? Do you have to go through customs?

Darryl
 
Thanks Everyone.

We'll be staying at Oyster Bay resort. I believe it's on the Dutch side, and Octopus diving is on the French side. Is that an issue? We'll have a rental car - how would it take to drive there? Do you have to go through customs?

Darryl

No customs and you can drive the whole island in 30 minutes (if they're not doing construction on the bridge).
 
Thanks.

Sop which side of the island has better diving?

We were also looking at doing the shark dive. It looks like Dive Safaris is the only dive op doing the shark dive?

Darryl
 
Thanks.

Sop which side of the island has better diving?

We were also looking at doing the shark dive. It looks like Dive Safaris is the only dive op doing the shark dive?

Darryl

There's good diving all over the island. I did the shark dive with Dive Safaris and it was a hoot. I have shark dive pictures on my Facebook page which is linked on my profile.
 
There's good diving all over the island. I did the shark dive with Dive Safaris and it was a hoot. I have shark dive pictures on my Facebook page which is linked on my profile.

Thanks!

What are the diffs between the two sides? More wrecks on one side? More big life? Etc
 
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