Nevis Diving!

[BuckBuucky]

My names Steve Buckingham and I am a Canadian working as an instructing scuba diver at Scuba Safari in Nevis W.I. I'm messaging about a potential travel destination that will diversify your company and it's customers. Nevis is a tropical paradise that has beautiful beaches, plenty of water sports and other activities to do. For the culinary experience, Nevis offers a wonderful assortment of luxurious dining to low key atmospheres. Nevis diving provides a diverse underwater environment that encompasses a vast array of coral species, fish, the opportunity to do shark dives, or get a glimpse of humpback whales. Our shop is offering a 6 night 7 day stay at the beautiful Oualie Beach Resort, a 2 Tank dives per day and every 6th person for free for only 1,200 $ USD (not including flights). Would your company be interested in this adventure?

looking forward to hearing from you,
scubasteve10116@hotmail.com
Steve Buckingham



Scuba Safari

Dive Instructor

PADI # 334064

 

[drrich2]

Hi:

Nevis is an island I rarely hear about, and usually like in the context of 'St. Kitts and...,' if memory serves. It'd be interesting to hear more details about it, and I'm hopeful you can fill us in since this thread might turn up when other people do searches. Some questions:

1.) What's the viz. tend to be? Say, compared to Key Largo (I thought was ~ 50 feet?), Bonaire or Belize (I'd guess 75 - 100) or Cozumel (100+ feet?)?

2.) What's the main reef type? Flat, hard bottom with spur & groove formation (some Key Largo), sloping hillside 'wall' (Bonaire), varied with some vertical drop-offs (Caymans), etc...?

3.) About how deep do the dives tend to run here?

4.) What shark dives? Are these dives where a reef shark happens to swim by, or shark feed dives, or just baited dives? Are we talking reef and nurse sharks, or other species?

5.) Do you have much commonly seen 'big stuff?' I'm talking big grouper (e.g.: Black, Nassau), and similar-size fish.

6.) You paint an attractive picture of Nevis; any thoughts on why it seems to be almost an unknown on the forum? Is it expensive to fly to, does it require transfers making it 2 days to get to & from (an issue with Dominica, I hear), or what have you?

7.) Is English widely prevalent? Is the U.S. dollar widely accepted? Are major credit cards widely accepted?

There's always room for another 'hidden gem' destination. I'm impressed with what I'm reading about St. Croix. There are some other seldom mentioned places with their fans (e.g.: Carriacou).

So, I wonder where Nevis fits into the dive destination landscape with so many choices for dive tourists who can't dive'em all?

Richard.

 

[Trailboss123]

Thanks for posting about Nevis-- Concur with drrich2-- would love to hear more about it!

 

[Trailboss123]

Hi:

Nevis is an island I rarely hear about, and usually like in the context of 'St. Kitts and...,' if memory serves. It'd be interesting to hear more details about it, and I'm hopeful you can fill us in since this thread might turn up when other people do searches. Some questions:

1.) What's the viz. tend to be? Say, compared to Key Largo (I thought was ~ 50 feet?), Bonaire or Belize (I'd guess 75 - 100) or Cozumel (100+ feet?)?

2.) What's the main reef type? Flat, hard bottom with spur & groove formation (some Key Largo), sloping hillside 'wall' (Bonaire), varied with some vertical drop-offs (Caymans), etc...?

3.) About how deep do the dives tend to run here?

4.) What shark dives? Are these dives where a reef shark happens to swim by, or shark feed dives, or just baited dives? Are we talking reef and nurse sharks, or other species?

5.) Do you have much commonly seen 'big stuff?' I'm talking big grouper (e.g.: Black, Nassau), and similar-size fish.

6.) You paint an attractive picture of Nevis; any thoughts on why it seems to be almost an unknown on the forum? Is it expensive to fly to, does it require transfers making it 2 days to get to & from (an issue with Dominica, I hear), or what have you?

7.) Is English widely prevalent? Is the U.S. dollar widely accepted? Are major credit cards widely accepted?

There's always room for another 'hidden gem' destination. I'm impressed with what I'm reading about St. Croix. There are some other seldom mentioned places with their fans (e.g.: Carriacou).

So, I wonder where Nevis fits into the dive destination landscape with so many choices for dive tourists who can't dive'em all?

Richard.

Richard: I Found this: Our Dives

 

[BuckBuucky]

Hi guys!
A little about the diving here:
On a clear day the visibility can range between 30-40 feet. There are a few spots on the leeward side of nevis where the visibility can be up to 50-60. We have a diverse range of things to see as we have access to the narrows (the shallow area between st kitts and nevis), the leeward side, where there are more rays and micro life, and the windward (atlantic) side, where there are humpback migrations, and bigger sea life.

There are a few spots along the st kitts section of the narrows where we see huge barracuda, some eagle rays and reef sharks, but to get the big stuff, it would be on the atlantic side, where there is chances whale sharks, mantas and humpbacks (during migration) - I just looked up the "big grouper" and no fish THAT big! There are several opportunities to do shark dives, where we could do a feeding for reef sharks - There are several areas where they are quite abundant without feeding, however. There are also a few dives (in the narrows) that we do where nurse sharks rest under/in volcano tubes (really cool to see!)

There are several variations of reef here as well. On the windward side of the island, we have several coral walls (some on the leeward as well, but not as deep). In the narrows, there are volcano tubes which coral has formed on, but mostly the coral is everywhere on the flats or rock growth.

On average most of the best sites are between 33-66 ft (10-20m), but some of the deep dives offer ship wrecks (depth of 72 feet), and volcano vents (depth of 92 feet sometimes)!

Compared with St Kitt's, Nevis is not a cruise ship community! The island is rather quite and feels more like a small niche resort island. To fly to Nevis directly is a bit of a pain as most flights come from puerto rico, and there are no commercial airlines that fly here. The best means of transportation would be to fly to St Kitt's and Ferry over! Flying from Canada (Toronto) a round trip flight was only 645 CDN (450~ USD). Flights often are in the afternoon to St Kitt's, which will leave enough time to go to a ferry and head to Nevis (not creating an overnight predicament). In Nevis the currency is Eastern Caribbean dollars, but USD is accepted everywhere (1USD = 2.70 EC) (1CDN = 2 EC).

St Kitt's & Nevis are English speaking!
Nevis offers a laid back atmosphere, where the diving can be exceptional! I think it's quite a hidden gem as there is only 1 dive shop (Scuba Safari) on it, which leaves the aquatic environment relatively untouched (besides some fisheries). This also leaves a more vibrant coral, and some sites that are rarely seen by divers. Although many places are well known, the advertising is quite limited for Nevis as the dive market is not overly saturated (more advertising = more exposure)

I hope this helps, and if you have anymore questions, or some were vague, i'll gladly be up to answer more.
best,
Steve

 

[drrich2]

Thanks for posting the added info.; that'd be very useful to prospective customers. For example, the idea of flying to St. Kitts and using a ferry vs. taking a flight from Puerto Rico. The 'volcano tubes' sound interesting, something not seen as some mainstream Caribbean destinations; a few photos on the thread of what Nevi has that most others don't could be useful. You mention St. Kitts a few times; does Nevis-based diving with you guys involve hitting some St. Kitts sites?

What little I've read of St. Kitts diving was complimentary, IIRC; I want to say tending to be shallow reef diving? Mainly comes up as an option on cruise ship stops, or the Explorer Ventures Saba-St. Kitts (dock at St. Maarten but don't dive it IIRC) itinerary, but Saba seems to be the 'glory hog' there, with St. Kitts being 'that other place.'

Glad to see you posting about Nevis and making more people aware of it. Over the years, I've watched a few seldom-heard-of (by me, anyway) destinations seeming to gain more traction; Dominica, Dominican Republic and especially Curacao. And some, like Grand Turk and particularly St. Eustatius, seem to stay under the radar for whatever reason.

Richard.

 

[BuckBuucky]

Most of the diving does occur around Nevis, but there are a few sites on the pan handle of St Kitt's (no other company dives there) that we go to. Often the cruise ships divers will dive around Bassetterre, where ships don't travel as far due to timelines, which leaves the pan handle unscathed! The nice thing about Nevis divers is that they are often not a "one time deal". Instead of diving the same site over and over (kicking up reefs), we would have the option to venture more and enjoy! I'll gather some photos this week and post them on here!