Jamaica - Falmouth

[tspeck007]

We're meeting family at the Starfish Trelawny Resort in Falmouth. The location of the resort is not an option. I understand diving on the north coast of Jamaica is decent so we'd like to schedule two days to to dive.

I'd be looking for suggestions on two items.
1. We need to know who to book our dives with: should we use our resort if available or some other dive shop?
2. Once we determine who we're going with are there specific places we should request to dive at? We're thinking about doing diving on two different days.

Lastly we are completely new to diving, having just been PADI open water certified so we've never done a dive before where we pay someone to take us out. SO any newb advice would be greatly appreciated on absolutely anything, - what to expect, what to bring, prepare for, how much cost, anything and everything.

Much thanks in advance!

 

[scubapatton]

Contact SunDivers in the Negril area if you want. I am not sure how close that is to Falmouth, but they are a great shop and have 2 locations. My wife and I just dove through them in mid-July and they took just the two of us out. GREAT chemistry between the divemaster and the captain. We had a blast.

 

[scubapatton]

Looking into it, Falmouth looks to be a ways away from Negril. You can talk to the concierge at your hotel and they will almost certainly have 2-3 recommendations for shops to use. You should probably research the specific dive sites you want to see in advance. When we went to SunDivers, I told them I wanted Deep Plane for Dive 1, Shallow Plane/Arches for Dive 2... guess where we went...? They had a lot of respect for us as well for doing site research in advance..

 

[bubbles3d]

Negril is quite far from Falmouth, it is almost on the other side of the Island. Several years ago Super Clubs purchased Trelawny and pretty much gutted and rebuilt the place. They fired all local dive operators and brought in their own people w/ experience and proper equipment along w/ new boats. I would contact your resort and talk to the dive operator there. You do have to be careful choosing your dive operator. Hope that helps.

 

[tspeck007]

Thanks, that definitely helps.

I was also hoping to get a recommendation for specific places to dive at. Any recommendations for that area?

 

[Seanpaul]

I have dove closer to Ochie and never dove the sites on the web link below however the Sandal's web site offers locations they go to. You may be closer to Montego Bay rather than Dunn's River area however.

Have fun!
Scuba Locations

 

[ReefHugger]

Starfish Hotel should have diving available. Check with water sports there. A deep water pier is to be built at Falmouth harbour, don't know if it has started. It is going to mess up some very nice dive sites. That is, Falmouth has some very nice diving. Don't know when you are visiting, but from here on in, the water could start getting a little cooler - a 3mm wet suit wouldn't be a bad idea.

 

[Scuba One]

Starfish has an in-house dive operation (owned by the resort). It is way more practical, timely, and cost effective to use the in-house program than try to have someone pick you up by car to take you elsewhere. The new General Manager, Richard Bourke, is an old watersports guy. I have more info at www.divesuperclubs.com

 

[Reefraff2]

We are looking at Breezes Resort all-inclusive in Montego Bay area. Is this a good place to go or can anyone recommend anywhere else? What is the avg. temp. (air/water) end of Jan. begin of Feb.? Thanks for any help.

 

[Scuba One]

Breezes Montego Bay does not include any scuba with the package. Breezes Runaway Bay includes a 2-tank dive daily for guests that are certified dives. They recently had a promotion where they were both the same price. I like Runaway Bay better and would pay for an upgrade if needed. They have a great beach that is semi-private (not alot of foot traffic) and they recently went through a major refurbishing.

I wsa there last week and plan to update my photos soon. Take a look at my photos, both above and below the water at www.divebreezes.com