Diving St. Martin

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SeaHeid2288

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Location
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Trying to plan a May vacation with the entire extended family and St. Martin has a few resorts available in our time share. I have been to the island on a cruise ship before but never stayed there and have not been diving there.

Can someone comment on the diving in St. Martin? What operation to use if staying in philipsburg area? We will have a few novice divers. Thanks!
 
It has been quite a few years since I dived there, and I dived exclusively on the Dutch side. The diving was run of the mill but pleasant. Nothing really deep or dangerous. It was pleasant, and I would do it again.

If I were to do it again, however, I would book more than the one day I spent on nearby Saba. That has some of the best diving in the Caribbean. If you fly over, you can get in 3 dives before flying back. (You can fly back the same day because it is a low altitude flight--takes only 10 minutes.) You can also take the ferry and possibly do two dives before taking it back. I say possibly because when I did it, the DM told us that we were going to be joined after the first dive by people taking the ferry, provided they were not too seasick to dive. Apparently that does happen, although in our case the people were fine.

If you fly over, you will get the experience of taking off from the world's shortest runway, with a cliff at each end. Youtube has many clips of planes taking off there. They use every inch.
 
We did a couple days diving there a few years ago, after our trip on the Caribbean Explorer 2. We unexpectedly had better diving on St Martin, due to great conditions at St Martin that allowed diving sites they couldn't usually go to (nice reefs, interesting stuff, pretty sharky), and assorted issues at Saba which was supposed to have been the best place on the trip. If everything were normal, I don't know what the diving would be like. Interesting island with lots of good food in any event, I'm glad we visited. Parts very built up and congested, but still interesting. (If you're into spa stuff, Ti Spa near Grand Case was an awesome little place. And that area is restaurant heaven, or at least was before the hurricane.)

We dove with Octopus from the Dutch side, even though we were staying near Octopus on the French side, due to boat problems. (Was unhappy about that since they still had one boat running from there, but I think it had classes so they drove us across the island each morning to the Philipsburg shop, but it turned out it was probably just as well. (Plus boarding the boat at their French-side shop looked tricky - Grand Case Beach apparently comes and goes, and was essentially gone when we were there.) A lot may have changed there since our trip, but it was a perfectly fine op, helpful folks. Would be good for novice divers, but I suspect that's true of anyplace there. If we get back there I might try someplace else depending where we were staying, I think I had originally been interested in using Ocean Explorers but at the time they were closed Sundays and that was one of the few days we had to dive.
 
St Maartins diving is ho hum. Nice but nothing special Great island to spend vacation time. Good food on the French side and lots to see and do all over.

Second the suggestion to spend a few days on Saba. Much better diving - some of the best in the Caribbean IMHO. Spent two days, took the ferry not the plane.

Liked Octopus diving when I was there, but much has changed so can’t recommend them any more than anyone else.
 
Just a reminder that Ste. Maarten did not do so well in the recent hurricane season, so we who have not been there in a while may not be the best resources.
 
Thanks for all the good tips. Interested in heading over to Saba for a day of diving. How do we arrange a flight to and from Saba?
 
Can someone comment on the diving in St. Martin? What operation to use if staying in philipsburg area? We will have a few novice divers. Thanks!

we enjoy the diving here. have also been to saba. diving there for us was so so. saw way more critters on st maarten but the pinnacle coral was pretty cool on saba.
are you staying right in philipsburg ?
we have used a few different dive ops over the years but prefer to use Dive Adventures when there now. they have a shop in simpson bay and at divi little bay.
but of you are staying right in philipsburg, octopus diving had a shop near the cruise ship docks. i assume it is still there but a lot has changed since the last hurricane. i would recommend contacting them directly. octopus has a very good reputation on the island.
 
Thanks for all the good tips. Interested in heading over to Saba for a day of diving. How do we arrange a flight to and from Saba?
You should be able to do a same day in and out by plane through Winair but you would probably be limited to just the one-tank 1p dive depending on flight times. The diving on Saba is truly phenomenal. We dove with Sea Saba which is one of the best ops I've used to date.
 
I will add that I believe you can dive then fly same day because the plane doesn't get up to altitude. I am not certain of this, though.
 
I will add that I believe you can dive then fly same day because the plane doesn't get up to altitude. I am not certain of this, though.
I am. I sat directly behind the pilot and watched the altimeter. He did get to 2,500 feet for a brief time. They advertised staying below 2,000 feet, which is considered safe by DAN, NOAA, the Navy, etc.

I did 3 dives the day I flew to Saba and back, and that is (or at least 2 was) a common plan.
 

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