Dive Report Dominica 2008
This is written in a hurry and is a bit rambling in style, so apologies.
We have just come back from Dominica where we were diving for the first two weeks in January 2008.
There are no direct flights from the UK or North America so we flew first to Barbados with BMI and then took a LIAT flight to Dominica.
We stayed at the Evergreen Hotel at Castle Comfort which is about 1 mile south of Roseau. There are 3 hotels next to each other at Castle Comfort, the Evergreen, the Anchorage and the Castle Comfort Lodge. Both the Anchorage and the Lodge have their own dive / whale watching operations, the Evergreen is a hotel only. We chose the Evergreen as it had larger and better rooms. Thats not to say the rooms at the other places were bad, nobody I met staying there complained, but we reckoned that as we would be there for two weeks we would pay a little extra to be more comfortable. All three hotels had reasonable restaurants. Menus changed daily but could at times be a bit uninspiring. I didnt travel 4,000 miles to eat minestrone soup.
We used Dive Dominica, who operate out of the Lodge, as our dive operator and we were very happy with them. They have 4 dive boats of varying sizes that can sensibly carry from 6 to 14 divers plus dive masters. All carried a first aid kit plus oxygen. The dive masters had a good knowledge of the dive sites and were all bar one local Dominicans. The non local was Canadian (Hi Jamie, if you are reading this!) Their rental equipment (BCD, Reg etc) was fairly new and in reasonable condition .Generally we set out at 08:30 and were back by 13:00 after two one hour dives. Dive Dominica will do a boat pickup from the cruise ship dock and the Fort Young hotel in Roseau.
.
The other operator we considered was Nature Island Dive based a few miles south in Soufriere. We heard good reports about them from other divers we met. What swung it for us to use Dive Dominica was that they were next door and we were unsure how easy it was to get down to Soufriere in the morning. As it turns out it wouldnt have been that difficult.
We pre-booked a dive package over the Internet before leaving the UK which gave us a significant discount over the day rate. Both the Anchorage and the Lodge offer combined hotel / dive packages which are worth looking at
All our diving was within the Soufriere and Scotts Head Marine Park. This is on the Caribbean side of the island rather than the Atlantic side. There was no diving on offer anywhere that we could find for the Atlantic side.
Most days there were no underwater currents. If there was a current it was weak and easy to swim against. A couple of days there was a fair surface current but nothing to worry about.
Visibility was generally excellent. Often over 100ft and clear water. Only on a couple of sites were there sediment / particles in the water. Conditions for photography were good. Several times on the trip out to the dive sites we were chased by pods of Frasers and Spotted dolphins and on one occasion we passed by some sperm whales.
Underwater there was an amazing array of corals and sponges and large shoals of chromis and damselfish. There were quite a number of turtles. There were even frogfish and seahorses. No sharks have been reported on this side of the island in recent years.
All the dive sites were worth visiting but our favourite were La Bim (The Abyss) which is an incredible wall and Coral Gardens which was just like swimming in an Aquarium.
Hope this is of some use to somebody.
Andy
BTW: Try the fruit cake from Sukies Bakery, it is laced with rum and lethal.
This is written in a hurry and is a bit rambling in style, so apologies.
We have just come back from Dominica where we were diving for the first two weeks in January 2008.
There are no direct flights from the UK or North America so we flew first to Barbados with BMI and then took a LIAT flight to Dominica.
We stayed at the Evergreen Hotel at Castle Comfort which is about 1 mile south of Roseau. There are 3 hotels next to each other at Castle Comfort, the Evergreen, the Anchorage and the Castle Comfort Lodge. Both the Anchorage and the Lodge have their own dive / whale watching operations, the Evergreen is a hotel only. We chose the Evergreen as it had larger and better rooms. Thats not to say the rooms at the other places were bad, nobody I met staying there complained, but we reckoned that as we would be there for two weeks we would pay a little extra to be more comfortable. All three hotels had reasonable restaurants. Menus changed daily but could at times be a bit uninspiring. I didnt travel 4,000 miles to eat minestrone soup.
We used Dive Dominica, who operate out of the Lodge, as our dive operator and we were very happy with them. They have 4 dive boats of varying sizes that can sensibly carry from 6 to 14 divers plus dive masters. All carried a first aid kit plus oxygen. The dive masters had a good knowledge of the dive sites and were all bar one local Dominicans. The non local was Canadian (Hi Jamie, if you are reading this!) Their rental equipment (BCD, Reg etc) was fairly new and in reasonable condition .Generally we set out at 08:30 and were back by 13:00 after two one hour dives. Dive Dominica will do a boat pickup from the cruise ship dock and the Fort Young hotel in Roseau.
.
The other operator we considered was Nature Island Dive based a few miles south in Soufriere. We heard good reports about them from other divers we met. What swung it for us to use Dive Dominica was that they were next door and we were unsure how easy it was to get down to Soufriere in the morning. As it turns out it wouldnt have been that difficult.
We pre-booked a dive package over the Internet before leaving the UK which gave us a significant discount over the day rate. Both the Anchorage and the Lodge offer combined hotel / dive packages which are worth looking at
All our diving was within the Soufriere and Scotts Head Marine Park. This is on the Caribbean side of the island rather than the Atlantic side. There was no diving on offer anywhere that we could find for the Atlantic side.
Most days there were no underwater currents. If there was a current it was weak and easy to swim against. A couple of days there was a fair surface current but nothing to worry about.
Visibility was generally excellent. Often over 100ft and clear water. Only on a couple of sites were there sediment / particles in the water. Conditions for photography were good. Several times on the trip out to the dive sites we were chased by pods of Frasers and Spotted dolphins and on one occasion we passed by some sperm whales.
Underwater there was an amazing array of corals and sponges and large shoals of chromis and damselfish. There were quite a number of turtles. There were even frogfish and seahorses. No sharks have been reported on this side of the island in recent years.
All the dive sites were worth visiting but our favourite were La Bim (The Abyss) which is an incredible wall and Coral Gardens which was just like swimming in an Aquarium.
Hope this is of some use to somebody.
Andy
BTW: Try the fruit cake from Sukies Bakery, it is laced with rum and lethal.