Negril Jamaica 2010 Trip report

[Wolver]

The wife and I stayed at Couples Swept Away, Oct 1-9. Found out on arrival to the island, airport just opened Wed. Sept. 29, and the road to Negril was flooded in Lucea until Thursday night. Arrived to the resort with scattered rain showers, destroyed beach, broken dive boat and rough seas.
Saturday, up bright and early to overcast skies and rough seas. Diving has been cancelled every day since Sept.27. Dive crew says possibly Monday or Tuesday before diving can resume. So I just took advantage of the included liquor and got really drunk.
Sunday, break in the weather, jamaican sun makes an appearance. Went out on the snorkel boat to see for myself what the vis is. 10-15 ft vis while snorkeling with a massive surge.
Monday, checked in at the dive shop to find that we are on. Couples borrowed a glass bottom boat from LaCocaPalms and retrofitted it to hold tanks. 2 dives completed. Vis improved to about 30 ft on the pm dive. Both dives 65' for 35-40min. seen a few rays, morray eel, lionfish ( bigger than last year), huge crab, and some other fish.
Tuesday, Sunny day, 2 dives completed on the Shallow Plane wreck. Same profile as the previous day. Seen a large school of big grouper. Never seen that before down there. DM says they come in after the storms. Removed a big, full fish trap wedged into a coral crevice and placed it back down into the sand. There was no way that trap was coming out without divers help.
Wednesday, Sunny day, windy, with rough seas. Diveboat goes out surprisingly! Captain wanted to call the day once out but the DM's talked him into going for it. 10' waves and that little glass bottom boat was not a good mix. Completed a 70' dive for 43 min. Vis better than the day before, around 40'. Swam through a huge school of Blue Chroma? Getting back in the boat was difficult but lugging my 130 around all summer made the 80 seem like child's play. Pm dive cancelled due to conditions and novice divers. DM coined the boat captain's new name as Capt. Chicken for the rest of the week.
Thursday, Another sunny day, little breeze. 2 dives completed. The throne room and Frechies Hole. These are my 2 favorite sites in Negril. 65' for 35min on both dives. Vis got to about 50 ft on the first dive and went back to 30' on the second dive. Multiple swim throughs, multiple lobsters, 3 morray eels, crabs, and a couple bigger colorful fish, but no idea what they were.
Friday, very clear and sunny, no breeze. Checked in to the dive shop and surprisingly found out no diving today. Official resort reason, boat got banged up the night prior. Well, I call BS on that. I think the resort did not have a captain for the day. Sure enough on Saturday, the boat returns and diving resumes. Too bad I fly out later that day. Ocean finally got that azure blue look to it as we are driving to the airport.

Overall, good trip, resort was very nice, food and drinks were excellent. Resort staff did a bang up job on getting the beach back to normal in 1 day, amazing for Jamaicans. Diving was so-so ( only 7 dives out of 15 planned were completed) due to the prior tropical storm but I had a blast anyhow, just wish Friday's diving was not called. Seems like the fish population overall is getting bigger, the lionfish (bad evasive species) are definetly bigger and more frequent sightings (seen multiples on every dive). Maybe the Marine Park designation in Negril is doing some good. This was my 6th trip to Negril. Now planning on the next carribean trip. It is down to Antiqua, St. Lucia, Barbados, Little cayman or Turks in June2011.

 

[DeusVerto]

Thanks very much for the report. My wife, youngest son and I are heading to Negril for a week at the beginning of November, hoping the tail-end of the storm season will bring better luck (Beaches to give the tyke something to do).

I am wondering if the Caribbean nations might come up with some kind of varmint-hunting bounty system for those lionfish before they over-run the place. How's that for a technical dive specialty? Lionfish eradication.

 

[ibj40]

Sucks about your bad timing, with respect to the storm. Great to hear about the continuing return of the wildlife.

Thanks for the report. We go back May, 2013.

 

[deeper thoughts]

Thnx for the report

 

[BettyfromToronto]

Thanks for the report Wolver. We are recently back from Sandals in Cuba and only had diving canceled one day (but thought there should have been two). We were lucky that no storm actually hit while we were there for two weeks.

Next trip is Roatan in February and then we are looking at Couples Negril in September 2011. I'm told it dives the same sites as CSA. I had e-mailed the dive shop at the resort and was amazed I got a reply on the weekend in less than 24 hrs. Impressed. Hubby is newly certified and we were wondering about the dive depths. They said they follow PADI rules (even though he is ACUC certified) which means all OW divers can only dive to 60ft. I can go with the other AOW, rescue divers, etc and go 60-100ft but of course I'm going to dive with my husband. I think he should do his AOW on that trip and then he can dive deeper plus he'll never been restricted again. (Like for our January 2012 trip to the Phillipines while visiting Hong Kong).

Why did you pick CSA over CN?

Betty

 

[Wolver]

We chose CSA for a few reasons:
1. They say they have Spa AC. Did not know what that meant, we wanted traditional Air Conditioning.
2. We have stayed @ Grand Lido in Bloody Bay 4x and wanted to stay on the main 7 mile beach this time.
3. The rooms look nicer @ CSA.
Note: Grand Lido ( Now Breezes Grand) has the best location for snorkeling.

Most resorts dive the same sites. They will stay @ 60-70' unless every person on the early boat is AOW, then they will go down to 100'-120'. Have your husband take AOW down there, that way, it ensures you both will get to dive the deeper sites. Have fun.