My partner and I are looking to do a week of diving somewhere warm in early March. We live in Seattle and would like to keep our travel time under about 10 hours, and we've done Hawaii recently, so we're looking toward the Caribbean (Belize/Honduras would also be great but I think we'll do that next time). Problem is....there's an awful lot of islands over there and we're not sure where we'll find the best diving!
We'd love some recommendations for places with good diving (shore and/or boat) where we can find reasonably-priced accommodations. (We have a free place to stay in Puerto Rico in April but I have no idea if there's any decent diving there at all. ) We're thinking about doing a liveaboard for part of the time so suggestions there would be great as well. He's a beginner (10 dives) but is taking to it like crazy, and I've got 50+ dives but haven't done a ton lately, so we're looking for moderate dives, nothing super-advanced. Just wanting to get some sun and get some more dives under his belt!
thanks!
We'd love some recommendations for places with good diving (shore and/or boat) where we can find reasonably-priced accommodations. (We have a free place to stay in Puerto Rico in April but I have no idea if there's any decent diving there at all. ) We're thinking about doing a liveaboard for part of the time so suggestions there would be great as well. He's a beginner (10 dives) but is taking to it like crazy, and I've got 50+ dives but haven't done a ton lately, so we're looking for moderate dives, nothing super-advanced. Just wanting to get some sun and get some more dives under his belt!
thanks!
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Seattle
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Sun, January 13, 2008 - 9:52 PMOh how I wish you could edit your posts after you submit them....that subject line should of course read "Caribbean", not "Carribean". *sigh* -
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 7:11 AMCozumel might work? I think from here in SF it's not a huge hall..basically fly to Houston, then Houston to Cozumel. Cozumel can be currenty though and a challenge for new divers. I stayed at Scuba Club there and enjoyed it.
Good luck! I'm envious! -
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 9:37 AMI have dove Coz and loved it - lots of lazy drift dives to be had! Airfares for the summer months into Czm are about $550 - $650. Might be slightly higher in the Springtime.
I am envious too. :)
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 9:05 AMI love the BVI & Dominica, but lots of people rave about Bonaire, which has lots of shore dives. -
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 3:11 PMThanks! Bonaire is unfortunately a bit outside of our travel time boundary - otherwise it would be high on the list.
any operators you like in the BVI and Dominica?
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 9:53 AMI only have gone diving in Turks and Caicos, but I loved the experience. I stayed at an all-inclusive resort, so it wasn't that reasonably priced. Well, it was, for what I was getting, but not if the only thing you really need is the diving.
Also, St. Lucia's supposed to be great for diving. I haven't done any diving here, but I did stay in a really nice villa that we rented near a resort that had a daily dive boat, which allowed non-resort guests to participate. It was in the southern part of the island, in a town called Sourfiere (pronounced Sue-frey). Here's the website for the dive center. www.scubastlucia.com/ But I'm not sure how long the flight would be from Seattle. St. Lucia's a LOT further away than Cozumel.
I also heard that diving in Saba is great, but I have never been to that island, so I have no other information than to convey that I heard it was good.
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 3:12 PMThanks for the tip! I will check out that link.
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 7:20 PMI've been diving throughout the Caribbean though not at every island. You can read up on many of my experiences at www.gailene.com/ggblog where there are tons of pics too.
I highly recommend Turks and Caicos. Especially Grand Turk which is in the middle of a whale migration route. March will be towards the end of the major migration but there will still be many whales around and dolphins in abundance. The diving is amongst the Top 10 in the world.
I used Oasis Divers (www.oasisdivers.com/index.html) on Grand Turk. They were extremely professional and lots of fun. The night diving is not to be missed. I did all but one dive on their 'menu' and loved all of them.
I stayed at the Salt Raker Inn (www.oasisdivers.com/accom.html#salt) which was clean, quiet, friendly and very reasonable. You can walk anywhere on the Island (it's only about 10 Km x 2Km in size) so there's lots to do and see when you're not diving. There are daily whale watching trips and boat rentals available. -
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 7:28 PMI also did a full 2 weeks of diving (with 10 days off in between to work on a yacht where I only dove 2 or 3 times) around Providenciales.
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Re: Carribean dive vacation recommendations sought
Tue, January 15, 2008 - 9:05 PMAwesome - that's great info. Thanks much.
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