Saint Martin Grand Case Check Dive?

[tregrrr]

ummm frostfire....

duuude you gotta get out of "Little Bay"

the diving is a mile off shore... I have yet to be disappointed by Proselyte [-sp?] reef area. There are a whack of moorings in the area that all the operator use.

 

[frostfire]

We dove out of Simpson Bay with Ocean Encounters 5 days. Mostly Little Bay area and the old bridge area as well as the shark dive. Lu and Jeff and Kaylie are lovely to work with, but the only reef structure I saw all week was the small reef by the shark dive straight out from the cruise ship dock.

 

[frostfire]

ummm frostfire....

duuude you gotta get out of "Little Bay"

the diving is a mile off shore... I have yet to be disappointed by Proselyte [-sp?] reef area. There are a whack of moorings in the area that all the operator use.

Unfortunately, with the incoming hurricaine, seas were rough and options limited.

And properly speaking, that whould be Dudette! ;-P

 

[tregrrr]

Yeah Ocean Explorers is good people. I got respect for them... if they were stuck doing Bridge and little bay then you can pretty much count on that being the only safe diving. Jefferson has never been one to unnecessarily restrict the variety. Being on the Windward side makes things get snotty fast.

If you were out on Big Mama's reef (the dominant female shark there is called big mama) then you saw the EDGE of the reef system... there are actually some really nice reefs further out. Even after diving them every day for months, I still enjoyed them. If you do get back to the island, take your regs with you and give it a try again, there really is some nice bottom out there

 

[Alucard]

OK frostfire, so you were highly restricted in terms of dive sites open to you due to the weather, and thus the diving was sub-optimal. It would have been nice if you had pointed that out in your original post, because the impression that you gave was that there was no good diving to be had.

OK, so it's not the best in the Caribbean, but it's a lot better than the picture you painted.

I know I saw more turtles (Hawksbills) on one dive in Grand Case bay than I have ever seen on any other dive - and that was all on a mini CORAL reef.

 

[tregrrr]

Alucard I would always suggest people give SXM a dive or two if they be there... definitely not THE best, but also not BAD either. I quite enjoyed some of the sites there. When I was living on the island a couple years ago, there was very healthy reef, even if somewhat short of large fish.

While Saba next door is on a different scale and IS a destination dive location, the diving on St Maarten is not worth missing. IN MY HUMBLE OPINION: If you are there, you are crazy to not make an effort to check it out. That being said, there probably are many better diving locations available if you are looking to travel specifically for the diving...


Despite never having worked for them, I do have respect for Ocean Explorers (who Frostfire went out with originally) and would count them as 1 of only 3 operators on that island I personally KNOW and respect enough to go on charter with. Also... If I had to choose a Caribbean operator for teaching family, I would trust them teach my family members to dive based on my personal experience with them at that time. I never did get over to the French side for diving, so MY experience is limited to Dutch operations...

 

[Alucard]

Tregrrr, I would definitely agree with you - it's not the best diving, but it's decent. We saw Spotted Eagle Ray, Black-Tip Shark, turtles (as mentioned already), massive lobster, some largish schools of different fish, and the usual reef fish and creatures (trumpets, porcupine, grouper, barracuda, blue tang, flamingo tongue, squid). Most of our diving was on the french side, though, and the single dutch side dive day we did was on a horrible day for weather so it wasn't that special.

And the island makes up for any lack in diving, in our opinion - some of the best food we have had in the Caribbean (up there with Grand Cayman), and we are foodies.

..and we're doing Saba next year.

 

[vailchef]

I have done a dozen or so dives with Dive Safaris out of Simpson Bay Lagoon. The shark dive is my usual I would guess. Single tank, and a lot of moving around but so worth the trip.Here are the SXM sharks

I did a shark dive off of P.N.G. a few years back which was incredible as well.


Anyway, I am in St. Maarten from early December through May 1, so if anyone wants to dive, let me know.
CD

 

[vailchef]

Posted twice, won't let me delete?