Recommended dive shops Dominica south end?

[mahea]

Hello,

I am going to be in Dominica (Roseau specifically) for 2 weeks in April visiting family, and am hoping to go diving for a couple days while I'm there. Any recommendations on which dive shop to use? From searching past threads I've seen great reviews for Dive Dominica & Nature Island Dive. Haven't found as much info about Anchorage, Fort Young, Seaside, Aldive, East Carib dive. Any info would be much appreciated! Thanks so much!

 

[Rescue Diver68]

Nature Island Dive is excellent.We are booked with them again this spring.
Dive Dominica picks up at multiple hotel locations and possibly cruise ship passengers as well.
I have no info on the Anchorage either.

 

[deborahdelamar]

Of all the ops we've gone out with in the Caribbean, Nature Island Dive is in our top three for all-round greatest experiences. Night dives with Simon rank number two for night diving. (Number one was also in Dominica at "Pole to Pole" -- underneath the Portsmouth cruise ship pier.)

Their location at the edge of the Scotts Head Marine Reserve is great. They deliver a comfortable and easy experience and you can learn quite a lot from them about the sea life, island life, and diving in general.

Most highly recommended!

 

[diverrex]

Of all the ops we've gone out with in the Caribbean, Nature Island Dive is in our top three for all-round greatest experiences. Night dives with Simon rank number two for night diving. (Number one was also in Dominica at "Pole to Pole" -- underneath the Portsmouth cruise ship pier.)

Their location at the edge of the Scotts Head Marine Reserve is great. They deliver a comfortable and easy experience and you can learn quite a lot from them about the sea life, island life, and diving in general.

Most highly recommended!

I'll be diving with NID in June, glad to hear you liked them. We'll also be diving with Cabrits up north, I'll guess we'll have to try a night dive at each place based on your strong recommendations. So who is your number 1 & 2? So far for me #1 is Blue XTSea in your neck of the woods.

 

[deborahdelamar]

In considering the whole picture -- service of op, beauty of site, relaxed enjoyment -- the three in no specific order are Dive Adventures/Bequia (I forget the name of the sites but diving the wall, shelf & break area of the main port - pristine, wild & so colorful), Living Underwater/a full day diving Cozumel's Eagle Ray Pass at mating season -- using huge tanks of Nitrox, and NID.

One thing with NID -- don't let the other divers (if there are any) or the DM's dictate your dive time. It's OK to use your entire tank even if the DM's get cold and go up. You'll be able to see the boat. You travelled so far to be there -- enjoy!

And yes, take Cabrits' twilight-to-night dive (2 tanks) and tell Helen to take you to Pole-to-Pole for the night. It's fun to see the reef change at twilight -- the spiny urchins are on the march and the predators grab their last meal of the day. At night, the balloonfish will come to your light and you can almost pet them. (They become pests after a little while.) There are lots of tiny shrimp in the water and, if you push them toward the tube anemones that pop out of the sand, you will see them feed -- their little tentacles wrap around the shrimp. Careful though, there are lots of scorpionfish on the bottom, too.

 

[aquajon]

between NID and cabrits is one better then the other or do they both offer the same thing and same great dives.

 

[deborahdelamar]

If you must choose between the two, go south to NID -- Scott's Head Reserve is too amazing to miss. I'm not knocking Cabrits -- it's a vey good op -- but Portsmouth-area sites aren't the ones that give Dominica its fame as a dive destination.

 

[RTRski]

NID gets consistently good reviews. I've dove with Anchorage and they were great as well...probably better now that Izzy (one of the guys pivotal in getting the whole Soufriere preserve set up) is now running their dive operations. He and Simon from NID are good friends.

NID probably has some benefits in that its a lot 'closer' to the sites, being all the way down there in Soufriere. Anchroage and Dive Dominica (and now AlDive I guess) are all a bit further north, at the south end of NewTown and Roseau, but the boat times are still sub-15 minutes to the dive sites. Personally for me having the availability of a somewhat nicer hotel and shorter walk / taxi to Roseau for meals staying in the Anchorage/Evergreen/etc area was worth it.

I don't have any positive/negative comments about Dive Dominica, as I didn't use them, but do know that they usually also pick up the divers from the Ft. Young hotel up in Roseau and (I believe) also get the cruise ship divers. They do have more than 1 boat so that doesn't automaticaly mean "cattle boat" but just be aware. Anchorage has the bigger cat that they use for larger dive groups but also a 6-8 pack sort of setup as well. We mostly got to dive off the smaller boats. I think NID is ONLY small boats.

We didn't do any of the northern end diving. Have to have a reason to go back, I guess.

 

[don Francisco]

Add another vote for Nature Island Divers. Like RTR, I prefer staying in nicer accomodations closer to town, so we stayed at the Evergreen, a very nice hotel in Castle Comfort (southern end of Rouseau). I had a rental car and adapted quickly to the challenging Dominica driving, but you can use the dollar vans to get to NID in the morning.

One of my favorite things about diving with NID is their approach to multi-level diving. Being right in Soufrierre means that their boats do only one tank at a time, and can have long SIs back on shore. Once at the site the dive plans usually call for the dives to end on fairly shallow reef tops or shelves, and divers are encouraged to extend their dives as long as their air and patience allows. Because of this flexibility, some of my longest career dives are with NID.

 

[lucidblue]

I don't have any positive/negative comments about Dive Dominica, as I didn't use them, but do know that they usually also pick up the divers from the Ft. Young hotel up in Roseau and (I believe) also get the cruise ship divers. They do have more than 1 boat so that doesn't automaticaly mean "cattle boat" but just be aware. Anchorage has the bigger cat that they use for larger dive groups but also a 6-8 pack sort of setup as well. We mostly got to dive off the smaller boats. I think NID is ONLY small boats.

I'm staying at Castle Comfort Lodge and using Dive Dominica at the end of the month. From what I've been told, they use a separate boat to pick up the cruise divers, not sure if that includes the Ft. Young divers. I'll post an update when I returning confirming whether this is true. I hope it is...

I plan to go to NID and dive with them one of the days that I'm not diving with Dive Dominica.