Recommendations for St. Thomas dive operators?

[mdr231]

Will be taking a cruise with a port stop in St. Thomas in a couple of weeks. Can anyone recommend a good, reliable dive operator who can meet us at the ship? Looking for good newbie dives.

thanks in advance!
Michael

 

[RICHinNC]

Do a search for the Chris Sawyer dive operation. They have a web site and are really good on answering their email. And, they are an outstanding dive op.

 

[Tractor Tom]

Michael,
I was in St. Thomas in January and had an EXCELLENT experience with Sean and Aitch at Blue Island Divers. Their shop is located in the Crown Bay Marina and have a very laid back operation. Fairly small boat, good quality equipment, small groups. Of the three Islands I dived on that trip, I found the best diving on St. Thomas. I really think the difference was the dive operator, not the diving! They bring their dive boat out to the pier at Haversite and pick you up, and then will either drop you at the cruiseship terminal after the dives, or take you back to the shop and help you arrange transport back to the pier. Just the best!

Check out their website at http://www.blueislanddivers.com/

If you do go and dive with them, pass along reguards from "Frankenmuth Tom"

 

[MaresMan1]

I totally agree with Frankenmuth_Tom. BID is a great shop and they really work with you. Nuff said. Enjoy

Dive Smart; Dive Safe
Enjoy the ride
:mean:

 

[mdr231]

Thanks everyone. Will let you know how it turned out.

Michael

 

[mdr231]

Got back from the cruise last week. It was wonderful and we all had a great time.

A couple of weeks prior to our visit I had arranged with Blue Island Divers to meet us in St. Thomas. Since we only had one day down there, I wanted to squeeze in as many dives as possible and the owner, Aitch, agreed to let us do three dives for an additional $45 per person (normal outing is $80 for a 2-tank trip). We agreed on 3 specific reef dives since I had no interest in doing any wrecks.

The boat and crew met us as scheduled at the docks right on time. So far so good. Unfortunately, they were not informed of our agreement with Aitch, and they were only prepared to do 2 dives with us. In addition, they said the 3 that we had arranged with Aitch were impossible to do in a single outing since the sites were too far apart. The two they had planned were one of the reef dives I requested and a wreck dive that was VERY low on my list. The good news was that there was only one other diver on the boat besides my son and me.

In spite of the disappointing start (and poor coordination by BID), the two dives we did were really fun. We only went down to about 45 feet, but were able to stay down for about an hour each dive. The reef was beautiful (T Table) and the wrecks (navy barges) were also pretty cool with a different assortment of sea life. My son even had an encounter with a barracuda that swam to within 3 feet of his face, showed its teeth, then swam off. I missed the whole scene since I was 5 feet below him with my camera looking for cool stuff on the bottom :bonk: He got scared, but it didn't phase him and at least he has a cool story to tell.

So, all in all, the dives, which were our first warm water dives, were great. The sites were nice and we saw some cool sea life. We used our own equipment so I can't comment on the stuff BID might provide. BID met us as scheduled, and the crew were nice, but BID could have done much better by providing what we had actually agreed to in advance.

As soon as I scan some photos, I'll post them up on the photo board.

cheers,
Michael