Diving off cruise ship?

[ROUS]

My cruise ship dive at Grand Turk.

 

[mac66]

My cruise ship dive at Grand Turk.

WOW! Well done.
Relativley short and sweet, well edited and music. Looking forward to more.

 

[ROUS]

I dove St. Martin yesterday. The operator, Dive St Martin, was excellent--friendly and professional. But, I left disappointed. We dove two sites on the east side of the island. These were both live drop entries, with timed, coordinated entries, four divers at a time. I'd hoped that the challenging, somewhat-remote locations meant a remarkable dive. I got just the opposite.

There was just very little to see there. The viz was poor--no more than 40 ft. There was no coral, but just shortish rocky mounds or piles of UW boulders. There was very little marine life. I did get to see an Eagle Ray, which was cool. But, most everything else was typical reef fish and they were few. No one there indicated that it was an unusually bad dive day, but maybe it was. With so many spectacular Caribbean islands out there, I'd not dive St Martin again. If you've had a better experience there, please comment with what you saw.

This is not a knock on Dive St. Martin. I liked this operator a lot.

 

[jonhall]

If you've had a better experience there, please comment with what you saw.

Sorry you didn't get the experience you'd hoped for. I've only stayed on the island and dove. Assuming you went east of Great Bay where the cruise ships pull in. Not sure how far east you went, but staying southeast, there are quite a few dive sites; a few I went to were decent. I did 6 dives in the area and had cruise ship divers onboard each of the 3 days I dove. I saw nurse and/or reef sharks on every dive, barracuda, turtles, eagle rays and, as you said, typical reef fish, but not a lot. The Proselyte (dive site) is a torn apart wreck that, if you know what to look for, can be interesting.

I doubt that any dive op for cruise ships go to the southwest end of the island but, in my opinion, is a different type of diving than on SE side. There are a couple of small swim-through wrecks that I really enjoyed with different life around and in them. Not much reef that direction either.

 

[ROUS]

cruise ships go to the southwest end

Hi Jon, thanks for the input. Actually, we went pretty far east of the island. Our first dive seemed to be half way between St Martin and the next island over (St Barths?). It was at a "pinnacle", famous for visibility and marine life. It wasn't much of a pinnacle and had neither of the above that day. Then, we moved closer to St Martin to dive off Molly Beday--a small, rocky, bird island. We circled it on the bottom looking for life and didn't find much. This operator indicated that going east was where the good stuff was, but most operators won't go that far. Beats me.

But, it was a day underwater with nice people. So, it was still better than prowling through souvenir shops.

 

[mac66]

I dived St. Maartin a couple years ago. I remember it being decent but can't find my dive log to look at my notes to see who I dived with what sites we went to. If I find it, I'll come back and comment.

My lovely wife looked it up and I dived Dive Adventures booked through Aqua Mania. It was maybe a half mile walk from the ship pier.

I've been meaning to ask what camera you're using. I was looking at some of your other videos on the underwater videography forum

 

[ROUS]

I've been meaning to ask what camera you're using. I was looking at some of your other videos on the underwater videography forum

Hi Mac. I'm currently using a Gen 2 Paralenz Vaquita. As a matter of fact, I shot video all morning here in Barbados. (Which was spectacular!)

But, I'll be building a new Lumix-based camera rig in 2023. With Paralenz' bankruptcy, I just can't stick with it as my primary camera.

 

[Eric802]

Looking forward to the Barbados video! Loved that island when we stopped there.

 

[ROUS]

Looking forward to the Barbados video! Loved that island when we stopped there.

Hi Eric. I'll have to bust it into multiple films. There was just so much scenery down there. I can't believe how much video i recorded on two little dives.

I will most definitely be returning to Barbados!

 

[Bubblesong]

My daughter had a good experience diving through Celebrity Constellation excursion, that docked in St Thomas, right next to scuba dock, I could see the dive boat loading from ship: Underwater Adventures, $155, including all gear. Saw lots of cool critters.