PatW
Contributor
I have dove many of these places.
Turks and Caicos.
South Caicos has a wall at about 80+ feet. I have seen schooling reef sharks there and I hear Eagle Rays do that there also. The inner reef is shallower. The visibility is great. The problem is that hotel facilities tend to be hit or miss (I don’t know the current situation) and the dive operator is often lacking.
Salt Cay - is a small island with a tiny population. I dove there and my dive partner was a regular. I think I met half of the island’s population during my one week stay. The diving is pretty good. It has nice walls and some nice reef and again, great visibility.
Grand Turk - the capital of the T&C. It has a number of dive operators and some really nice walls and again, great visibility.
Caymans
I have been to Little Cayman and Cayman Brac many times. Bloody Bay Wall at Little Cayman is quite famous. There are some really great dives there. And there is a large variety. It features very tame hawksbill turtles and tame Nassau grouper. The nice thing is that virtually every dive site has a mooring shallow enough to do your safety spot on some coral heads.
But as good as Little is, I like the Brac better. The diving is similar but deeper. I love the south side but often you can’t dive there because of the wave action (not large but it mucks things up and many divers do not have great sea legs). The walls at the south side are deep but I believe they are right up with the best in Caribbean. I have seen reef sharks on half of my dives on the south side walls. Also the corals on these walls is possibly the best in the Caribbean. There is a dive on the south side (shallow) that has a dozen of the biggest and healthiest pillar coral heads I have ever seen. There is another site that has healthy elkhorn coral. And there are several dives where you can find some nice healthy staghorn coral. The Brac also has the friendly hawksbills and Nassau grouper.
Cozumel - the southernmost section is by far the healthiest. It often has currents. The diving can be absolutely superb. And the topside can be equally nice.
Utila and Routan. The west side of Utila has a wide variety of diving and some really good sites. There are not that many fish. I think that Routan is not quite as good. But Utila is backpacker central and Routan is more geared to adults.
Belize - Turneffe Atoll has good diving especially The Elbow. The lagoon has world class snorkeling and you can find healthy staghorn there. Lighthouse Atoll farther out has better diving and really great coral.
South Florida
Jupiter and West Palm - Jupiter is famous for big stuff. It is famous for sharks. I have not seen them but I have not dove it much. I did a dive there though where I saw schooling Goliath grouper. What a hoot!
Blue Heron Bridge - great muck dive. It is shallow and you can dive only at high tide. It is shallow and tends to have limited visibility but that is OK because you are looking at small stuff usually. You can see all sorts of things: bat fish, frog fish, flying gugnards, sea robins, jawfish, octopus, all sorts of morays, blennies and so on.
Key Largo - has the best diving in the keys. It has good coral and a really nice variety of fish. I have seen large fish (grouper, snapper and shark) attacking bait balls there. That is really cool.
A caution about Florida is Florida boaters tend to be oblivious about divers with the obvious risk that poses.
You might not want to fool with Florida but it is worthy of consideration.
Turks and Caicos.
South Caicos has a wall at about 80+ feet. I have seen schooling reef sharks there and I hear Eagle Rays do that there also. The inner reef is shallower. The visibility is great. The problem is that hotel facilities tend to be hit or miss (I don’t know the current situation) and the dive operator is often lacking.
Salt Cay - is a small island with a tiny population. I dove there and my dive partner was a regular. I think I met half of the island’s population during my one week stay. The diving is pretty good. It has nice walls and some nice reef and again, great visibility.
Grand Turk - the capital of the T&C. It has a number of dive operators and some really nice walls and again, great visibility.
Caymans
I have been to Little Cayman and Cayman Brac many times. Bloody Bay Wall at Little Cayman is quite famous. There are some really great dives there. And there is a large variety. It features very tame hawksbill turtles and tame Nassau grouper. The nice thing is that virtually every dive site has a mooring shallow enough to do your safety spot on some coral heads.
But as good as Little is, I like the Brac better. The diving is similar but deeper. I love the south side but often you can’t dive there because of the wave action (not large but it mucks things up and many divers do not have great sea legs). The walls at the south side are deep but I believe they are right up with the best in Caribbean. I have seen reef sharks on half of my dives on the south side walls. Also the corals on these walls is possibly the best in the Caribbean. There is a dive on the south side (shallow) that has a dozen of the biggest and healthiest pillar coral heads I have ever seen. There is another site that has healthy elkhorn coral. And there are several dives where you can find some nice healthy staghorn coral. The Brac also has the friendly hawksbills and Nassau grouper.
Cozumel - the southernmost section is by far the healthiest. It often has currents. The diving can be absolutely superb. And the topside can be equally nice.
Utila and Routan. The west side of Utila has a wide variety of diving and some really good sites. There are not that many fish. I think that Routan is not quite as good. But Utila is backpacker central and Routan is more geared to adults.
Belize - Turneffe Atoll has good diving especially The Elbow. The lagoon has world class snorkeling and you can find healthy staghorn there. Lighthouse Atoll farther out has better diving and really great coral.
South Florida
Jupiter and West Palm - Jupiter is famous for big stuff. It is famous for sharks. I have not seen them but I have not dove it much. I did a dive there though where I saw schooling Goliath grouper. What a hoot!
Blue Heron Bridge - great muck dive. It is shallow and you can dive only at high tide. It is shallow and tends to have limited visibility but that is OK because you are looking at small stuff usually. You can see all sorts of things: bat fish, frog fish, flying gugnards, sea robins, jawfish, octopus, all sorts of morays, blennies and so on.
Key Largo - has the best diving in the keys. It has good coral and a really nice variety of fish. I have seen large fish (grouper, snapper and shark) attacking bait balls there. That is really cool.
A caution about Florida is Florida boaters tend to be oblivious about divers with the obvious risk that poses.
You might not want to fool with Florida but it is worthy of consideration.
