What's as good as Bonaire??

[victorzamora]

Along with Belize, Roatan might be a good one. They've got a little bit of the ZipLine/Parasail type stuff....and they've got a beautiful assortment of Mayan ruins just across the water near La Ceiba, Honduras.

 

[Diver477]

Well, we initially set our sights on St. Maarten cause it was pretty wallet friendly compared to some other dive destinations. My son is 21 and we were just looking for some other additional activities topside in addition to diving, be it by shore or boat. That's why we loved Bonaire so much---its restaurants were top notch and the main town area was pretty lively. But in light of all the suggestions, I'm gonna check into those destinations as well so thanks for all the input!

 

[wgreenti]

Given your stated interests, another approach that you might like to consider would begin with some serious diving in Saba followed by some serious decompression in Sint Maarten.

It's far easier to contrast diving in Saba and Bonaire than it is to compare it:

Saba has the sea mounts with a greater chance of seeing big pelagics. Reef sharks and nurse sharks are a given. Bonaire, on the other hand, is renowned for accessibility and optional independence from boat diving. Both Saba and Bonaire have lots of turtles, although Saba has more green turtles, and the turtles are more generally approachable. Bonaire probably has better coral coverage. Imaging can be a bit trickier in Bonaire, however, due to the preponderance of white sand (Saba has black sand). Another thing to note is that it can be tricky at times getting to and from Saba, giving Bonaire a decided advantage on that front.

The links below are to my prior posts of video showing general experience of Saba diving. Unfortunately, I wasn't shooting video when I was frequenting Bonaire, so I can't really give a fair impression of the awesome diving found there. I agree with the other posters concerning other destinations that are highly worthy of your consideration.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/464052-video-saba-part-i.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underwater-videography/464744-diving-saba-2013-part-ii.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underwater-videography/465404-diving-saba-2013-part-iii.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/474291-saba-closer-up.html

 

[rbahr]

Hi Sorrows,

Sorry to not get back to you - for some reason the notifications does not seem to work...

Getting in and out of Saba is a bit of an adventure - There are 2 ways: Landing on what is probably (no kidding) the worlds shortest commercial runway or taking a ferry. We have done both, we take the ferry if the winds are to high and they are not flying - in which case the ferry trip is a bit choppy

The flight is fun, the pilots know what they are doing, but it can be intimidating if you are not used to small planes... The ferry ride (when we have done it) was pretty rough - to the point that we were unable to walk around, but still a bit of an adventure.

We have gone in the March/April time frane or the November/Thanksgiving time frame. The Viz can be good or not if there has been recent weather.

We do like exploring/hiking and pretty much staying off the beaten path.

HTH

Ray

 

[scubadada]

Scubadada, we dove with CC, and yes, we dove both their house reef and Lighthouse Point several times. It's wasn't terrible or anything like that, just not as good as it could have/should have been--and it was expensive for what we got. Of course, this is JMHO, and obviously not yours! Equally obvious, diving the Kittiwake (my dad's last ship) was wonderful.

I did write a report, which you can find here, if you are interested:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ca...ort-cobalt-coast-divetech-may-6-may-10-a.html

I'm not a big fan of dolphinariums nor the shark dives with chum and I also thought the ray feeding was a little too Disneyesque. Again, JMHO.

Actually, my favorite on Grand Cayman is the East End at Compass Point with Ocean Frontiers.