Explorer Bahamas vs. St Kitts/Maarten

[divengolf]

Then you should probably do the Bahamas itinerary. The St Kitts/Saba/st. Marten one is more advanced diving. Deep pinnacles and blue water on several sites.

I've done both Explorers in the past two years and would rate the diving on the St. Martaan/St. Kitts trip as slightly better. However most of the Bahanas trip is done on the west side of SanSal which has excpetional wall diving with shallow reefs and is probably better suited for a newbie. Most liveaboard passengers have a substantial number of dives, so it may be tough to buddy-up. But Explorer always puts a DM in the water on every dive and you could accompany him/her.

You'll get the most out of a liveaboard experience if you are comfortable with your bouyancy and AOW certified so you can do the deeper wall dives. Remember what one old DM told me when I was starting: "At twenty dives. you think you have it figured out; at 100 dives you figure out how little you know"

The solution is to go dive as much as you can and a liveaboard is the best way to od that.

Good luck.