Saba and Sint Maarten Diving Report (warning: loooong!!)

[RTRski]

Sint Maarten and Saba Trip Report

Hi all. My turn to give something back to the board. My wife and I just returned from Sint Maarten and Saba, and here’s how things went. I should note that we were dodging some of the outer regional weather effects of both Dennis and Emily while there from 3 – 14 July, 2005, so the weather wasn’t ideal (we had 7’ seas getting back into the boat Tuesday – ouch!) which limited the dive location choices as well for some of the days, but aside from not traveling in the summer/fall you can’t choose your weather. Water temp was uniformly 86 degrees or so at the surface dropping to 82/84 or so at depth, visibility lows were perhaps 40 feet on some of the shallower sandy dives but up to 70 feet or more on some of the deeper Saba dives.

First a paragraph or three about the dive operators we used, then on to the dives and site highlights specifically.

SINT MAARTEN OPERATORS:

On Sint Maarten we dove with both Dive Adventures/Aquamania and with Dive Safaris – five dives with the former over two days (including 1 night dive) on Tues July 5th and Thurs July 7th and three with the latter (including their ‘Shark Awareness’ dive) all on Fri July 8th. We used our own equipment so I can’t comment much on rental gear aside from visual impressions, but everything from both operators had that nice sun-faded look (BCs, wetsuits) but appeared to be in reasonable repair.

We had some slight equipment issues with our own regulators with both operators, and I was satisfied with the way they were handled in both cases. [With DA we had our high-pressure lines come loose to the point an o-ring wasn’t seating right – poor initial torquing during assembly by our shop, or just ‘travel gremlins’? Not sure – and they identified and corrected the problem with no time lost. With DS both my wife and my fairly new Oceanic 180-swivel octopus secondary regs started free-flowing – the morning after having dove with them at DA, which was really confusing! – and after they determined there wasn’t a “quick” adjustment that would stop the free-flow without perhaps making them too hard to breathe thus useless as backups, DS did an intermediate pressure test for us to verify it wasn’t a first-stage problem, then swapped us out for octos from their own stores so we could proceed with the dives. Will be talking to our local shop about that bit later…]

Both DA and DS seemed professional and gave reasonable briefings before the dives, and had dive masters diving with us at all sites who clearly knew the sites and had good dive skills of their own. With DA we had a max of like 18 on a boat, with DS 14, and people were split into 2- 3 groups of 7 max based on a mix of who they came with and ability. Both operators made it a point to try to keep like divers together. My wife and I dove Nitrox for all these dive and both operators made it a point to have us personally verify the gas mixes and log them, and provided either 30, 32 or 36 based on the expected dive profile. All operators took pains to introduce themselves (dive masters and those staying on the boat) and be friendly and personable.

While I’d never accuse anyone of lax safety procedures without cause, so please don’t read this as any such accusation, I think I would have to say that after diving with both of them that DS seemed to run a much tighter ship. No specific complaints against DA, but DS’s entire operation just seemed very, very “crisp” with everything well handled like getting everyone in gear and prepped as the boat was making final approach to the dive sites, etc. for immediate descent and no significant waiting for the cattle to get in a row. I liked the arrangement of their dive boat better too. DA felt a bit more like it was running on “island time” to us – but that might’ve been just bad luck of the draw given some of the others we ended up diving with (you know the type—roto-tillers and those who shouldn’t be diving) and given that we dove them earlier in the week when weather was rougher, so the site selection was way more limited. There was just this definite feeling of improvement when we started diving with DS on Friday.

The only significant complaint my wife and I had (which we will share with the operator directly as well) was that the DA-run “night dive” we did had 14 people in one of their ‘smaller’ boats – and both groups of 7 ended up just lumped in the same direction although the initial briefing said we were coming in over a reef and one group would go one way, the other group the other way to reduce diver clutter. Despite color-coded lightsticks affixed to our equipment to identify group 1, group 2, and group 1 and 2 divemasters, that dive ended up being a milling swarm of rototillers and just plain not terribly fun. (Even the dive master subtly indicated his frustration without coming out and saying anything that would get him into trouble with his own management…) Given the propensity of people to ‘cluster to the light’ at night, they really should limit their night dives to fewer than their day dives, and/or make sure the divemasters coordinate with one another better.

So if I had it to do over again, I would choose Dive Safaris over Dive Adventures for my future diving in Sint Maarten (although to be fair there are other operators like Ocean Explorers who have good reputations we should also give a shot, so this is just a preference of the 2 we did experience). Weather and luck of the draw on other divers there at the same time as us probably played a factor, but that’s the opinion I’m coming away with. Dive Safaris, in particular the lead guide we dove with named Jefferson from Brazil, were just absolutely on top of the game the whole time and very satisfying to dive with. They were a tad more expensive than Dive Adventures, but given the way the dives were run we’d be willing to pay the differential.

<to be continued>

 

[RTRski]

SABA OPERATOR:

On Saba we dove with Saba Deep, currently run by “the Mikes”. “Big Mike” Austin is an old school dive master and instructor extraordinare and “Little Mike” Myers ran the shop (he dives too, but we didn’t have the pleasure of diving with him while we were there). They also had another superb diver named Olivier Van den Broeck (sp?) who took us out two of the three days (on the first day when we dove with Big Mike, he was playing with his rebreather…). These guys might be a bit of an acquired taste for some – Big Mike in particular is quite a character, an older diver with over 15k dives under his belt, 2k at well beyond “recreational diver” depths, opinionated, passionate, curmudgeonly, even a bit of a flirt with my wife, but all in a GOOD way, like the no-bull**** tough as nails Navy uncle you wish you had to tell it straight to you. He’s not the type to coddle anyone and has little tolerance for poor divers who have bad habits or don’t respect the environment, and his sense of humor is like a dry vodka martini with the vermouth bottle just sort of waved in the general direction of the glass – but there was zero question about his skills, qualification, or passion for diving and the dive environment there at Saba. I also have no doubt that if he’d thought we were too incompetent to dive “his sites” he’d have thrown our asses off the boat in a heartbeat, but despite a couple dumb gaffes on my part he managed to restrain himself, so hopefully that means we did okay overall. Mike Myers on the other hand is just Mr. Hospitality. There are no problems he says – anything you ask for is a ‘yes’ and if it’s a problem for him, well that’s why you’re paying him.

Frankly we LOVED diving with and interacting with all three of them and learned a lot from all three skill-wise as well, which I guess stands to reason as 8 dives in 3 days amounts to good ‘training’ even if that wasn’t your intention, but wasn’t something I’d planned on or expected from a dive ‘guide’ which I thought of more as just a guide to the site itself (and frankly I didn’t think we got much time to ‘learn’ from the Sint Maarten operators aside from the specifics of each site, even from Dive Safaris). Without even trying any of the other operators I can’t imagine diving with anyone else but Saba Deep if (when!) we return. They bring new meaning to the phrase ‘full service’. Once you hand them your equipment prior to the first dive, they set everything up, including having your mask pre-defogged etc. before the boat leaves the dock. They break down, rinse, store everything for the night and have it dry and out the next day. If your wetsuit or booties have raveling seams they won’t the next time you think to look. You only touched your equipment when you do a check before the boat leaves dock, then when you don and doff it for each dive (unless you wanted to do more, of course..another diver with us had a big camera rig and they gave him run of the shop to fiddle with it when a strobe acted up, etc.). They even fill out your logbook for you (which has advantages and disadvantages – the latter being that you don’t get your exact bottom depth and time in, just the sort of ‘dive average’ the leader reports as he’s piloting the boat back in) and give you a full map of all the sites in an nice information packet along with your billing paperwork after you’re all done.

As the sites are all pretty close to the bay where the shop is located with only a few exceptions, they also don’t camp the water between the first and second dive of the day for the surface interval – you come back to shore for a bathroom break or whatever else after each and every dive. That does mean they’re not providing free drinks and cookies on the ship, but hell, do you want to dive or go to pre-school? (I can imagine Big Mike saying that!) [By contrast, from what we saw at least one of the other ops camp the mooring points for at least their morning surface interval, which means for one thing you’re spending 30-45 minutes just sitting on a boat – but also means they’re hogging the mooring and preventing another op from tying up there while they’re on the surface and not using it...] You can order your lunch between the first and second dive’s interval, and they have it ready for you the second you’re dried off and upstairs in their restaurant after dive two for the longer interval before the afternoon dive (and the food was superb, no less, not just sandwiches or the like).

We did see the Sea Saba boats with their collection of 10-12 (?) divers, while we were diving in groups of 3-6 max off smaller boats (the Saba Deep boat setup could’ve taken more, but got the distinct impression they also preferred not to take more than 8 or so at a time). We only crossed paths with the other ops one one dive where we were each at different mooring points on one of the pinnacles, but working opposite sides of the slope so we only saw the occasional bubble or fin or tank in the distance from them, so the operations all do seem to somewhat respect one another (aside from the aforementioned mooring issue).

Basically Saba Deep is a very intensely personal diving experience, so if you want anonymity in numbers or larger dive groups of friends, they may not be for you, yet despite my wife and my relative inexperience with that sort of depth we never felt in over our head with them, and the sites we saw were breathtaking, and they never made us feel like ‘tourists’, more like newly discovered friends (or whippersnappers needing training, at times.

OK, on to the dives themselves. If I get time I’ll edit this with some links to pics uploaded as well:

 

[RTRski]

SINT MAARTEN SITES DIVED:

As stated earlier we were playing dodge with weather effects around the region of Dennis so some of the ‘really good’ sites according to the books I’ve read like “One Step Beyond”, etc, weren’t available due to rough water. So keep that in mind. Overall impression of Sint Maarten diving from what we did see was that it was probably as good as St Kitts in the right places, good fish counts and variety, but not “spectacular” in terms of coral growth. Mostly sandy bottom, coral collections in the 8-10 foot type ranges, some overhangs and the like, more soft coral gardens than hard coral. Being shallower dives (rarely below 70’) these reefs are probably pretty prone to storm damage, but according to the operators they have all been improving in the years since the last major hurricane targeted the island (Luis in 1995). There aren’t going to be any real ‘wall reef type’ dives here, although Saba (see later) has some volcanic pinnacles that have grown complete coral encrustation which do the trick nicely…

1. Long Bay Reef

We dove this site on Tuesday July 5th when waters were pretty rough, after trying a couple of others that were too dangerous given conditions. Not much of a reef – fair amount of broken and dead coral, some new growth, mostly soft. Depth about 56 feet. Sandy bottom surrounding the reef. Some overhangs with lobsters and the like, but nothing spectacular. Reef was between 2 and 5 feet high tops. Definitely a ‘when all else fails’ site. Divemaster did find arrow crab, Spanish lobster, and a frogfish to point out to us though.

2. The Gregory

The Gregory is a wreck sitting on a reef, so has elements of both. Wreck is inverted but intact. Max depth about 52’. Reef was nicer than Long Bay, healthier with more soft coral and a wider assortment of fish. We did see a blue-spotted moray (garden?) eel, several rockfish, more arrow crabs. Conditions deteriorated while we were at this site so the exit back to the boat was pretty challenging. A cut above #1, but still nothing terribly spectacular to those of you who think of Bonaire, etc. as definitive reef diving.

3. Caribe Cargo

This is just a wreck sitting upright and intact on a sandy bottom. Despite some fish concentration in and around the wreck, this was my least favorite dive. Not much coral encrustation on the wreck itself. There is a place to penetrate the wreck a bit, but the walls are somewhat covered with fire coral spreads so that’s not a great idea. We hit about 64’ max depth, starting with a circuit at the sand and working our way up in a spiral pattern to swim around at deck, then superstructure level. Sand surroundings promised chances for stingray contact, but we didn’t see any. We were told it looked kind of ‘dead’ that day and that normally there’s a lot more fish action.

4. Charlie Shoals

This was a nice little reef, about 2-5’ high with some overhangs, in a sandy surround. Lots of soft coral and sponge action plus some fresh hard coral growth on the substrate which again was probably killed pretty heavily back in ’95 by Luis. Actually started to see significant counts of anemones and tube worms and the like here too. Better fish variety, including a sea turtle at rest on the reef (apparently he’s there a lot in the same spot). Also spotted a couple of small stingrays, several of the little ghost shrimp, and my wife spotted a peacock flounder camouflaged in the sand. Max depth 57 feet, about a 45 minute dive given the air usage of the others in the group. Mooring point is near the ‘center of the reef’ so you can go either way from there – apparently one side has a small wreck too which we didn’t reach and no one named for us.

We returned to this site for a night dive. It was a bit more disappointing at night but probably more because of the mechanics of 14 people clustering tighter around the dive leaders who unfortunately both somehow ended up going in the same direction, and as a result scared off whatever sea life we might’ve hoped to see. The poor sea turtle was driven off its favorite perch by over 10 rude flashlights and flashing cameras shoved in its face at once…I’ve never wanted to slug someone else on a dive before, and this was the closest I’ve come. Too many totally inconsiderate divers (of both one another and the sea life) stirring up muck, rushing for their camera shot and running into others, and generally sucking down air like it was endless resulted in a pretty short (about 36 minutes) and shoddy dive, followed by way too much bigmouth bluster and ego stroking on the boat ride back. My wife, me, and another gentleman we’d done some of the earlier dives with just sort of cringed in the corner waiting for this big group of buffoons to leave. Supposedly the biggest single group of divers with us here was instructors/staff from the local medical school near Cupecoy bay – I just hope they’re better doctors than they are divers, because if there was such a thing as diving malpractice…<grrr>.

5. Teigland

Our first dive with DS rather than DA, on Friday, July 8th. This is a broken up wreck in a sandy area adjacent to a reef, but this was a way better dive than some of the ones preceding it. We dove this on Friday July 8th as the weather was continuing to improve to open up more sites. Max depth about 72’ dive time almost 40 minutes. Many large schools of fish swarming the wreckage inside and out and forming rivers of fish between the wreck and the nearby reef. Good coral growth (soft and hard) starting on the wreckage. Nearby reef with 3- 4’ diameter rounded coral mound growth gradually merging to 6-8 foot high reef line with good soft coral growth, etc. Spotted turtles, rays, barracuda, lobsters, etc. We started with a wreck circumnavigation including a small penetration full of HUGE lobster, then went to the reef, then returned to drain the last of our air over the wreck site. Current kind of picked up on the reef side making the return harder than anticipated, which shortened our dive time. Visibility was also the best yet at about 60’ or so (prior sites were all probably 40-55’ vis given weather conditions…). I would do this site again, preferably in a bit less current. For the record I don’t think it was a matter of divemaster misplanning – the current definitely “began” to effect the site while we were down there – it hadn’t been there on the swim from the wreck to the reef. Stuff happens.

6. The Bridge

This isn’t so much ‘one site’ as a few isolated points of interest in a relatively small area. There’s the wreckage of an old bridge towed out to sea and scuttled about 12 (?) years ago, and two or three small sailboat wrecks also scuttled here, all forming pockets of activity in a sandy surrounding but also with a bed of some sort of sea grass (?) on the traverse from one to another. We saw and were able to very carefully do a close approach to touching distance of a pretty big (4’ or so wingspan) stingray, and saw many others of varying sizes both in the sand and in motion. Divemaster pointed out jawfish popping in and out of holes in the sand, some blennies hiding in coral encrustations on one of the wrecks, and the like. Not so much coral growth on any of the sites, but a good variety and count of schooling fish. Max depth only 49 feet, we were down for nearly an hour.

7. “Big Mama’s Reef”

This is the site in the afternoons on specific days only of the Dive Safari’s “Shark Awareness” dive. We drop down to a sandy bottom on one side of what looked to be a pretty nice reef to dive on other days/times – about 10-12’ tall with a lot of soft coral motion – then skirt the end of the reef to the site itself which is a small ‘theater in the half-round’ of cinderblocks. Divers are instructed very specifically to stick together in a group, hug the sandy bottom, avoid sudden movement, and pick a cinderblock to grab and do not let go (if they have cameras, use it as a ‘table’). No waving of hands, etc. At the center of the half-circle the divemaster, Jefferson, equipped in full hooded wetsuit with chainmail gloves and sleeves, will stick-feed just a few small pieces of fish to sharks while the rest of us watch. The site supposedly gets a range of 3 – 20 sharks coming to the event; we saw only 5, but that included “Big Mama” who was about an 8 – 9 foot reef shark. Dive is 57’ on the bottom, about 45-50 minutes total time, but passive as you’re intentionally overweighted and hugging the bottom motionless to spectate. Sounds boring perhaps, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. One thing that really surprised me is the way small schools of other fish (I think snapper – not sure) would also come circle in around the feeding spot, apparently unafraid of (and unmolested by) the sharks. Each of the larger sharks had its chaser fish and remoras, all of which we got to see up close – often as the fed shark darted away after snatching the bit from the stick going right over our heads well inside touching distance.

Dive Safari’s purpose is not to titillate with shark feeding – there’s no chumming the water or feeding frenzy going on here, more like tossing peanuts to an elephant – but to try and give people some awareness of and view of sharks to remove the media’s portrayal of them as insane killers. They spend a great deal of time talking about how many and varied species of sharks there are of which only a tiny minority are of any human threat, education of how few attacks there really are and why they seem to have happened, as opposed to how many of them are killed by humans for just finning purposes, for sport, or worse yet just accidentally and uncaringly. Unfortunately by ‘teaching’ this the scuba qualified they may be somewhat preaching to the choir so to speak, but I do think their hearts are in the right places with this.

On to Saba….

 

[RTRski]

SABA SITES DIVED:

I’ve read in many places that Saba ranks among the top diving in the Eastern Caribbean, and is frequently on the short list of the top 8-10 dive sites in the world (excluding more specific lists like wreck sites or whatnot) within recreational diving limits. And from our experience, we can see why. After diving around Sint Maarten, diving increasingly better sites as the weather opened up, the first dive on Saba was like a slap in the face, telling us “you hadn’t seen anything yet no matter how good you thought the other sites were getting”. I’m talking complete coral coverage to the point where you go into almost overload – everything is colored, alive, thriving with fish. Where do you ‘start’ to focus?

Most sites on Saba are volcanic with coral and sponge growth – soft or hard corals depending on depth and other factors of course – rather than being true ‘coral reefs’ of new coral grown on old substrates of coral skeletons, accreted over years. There was one site that was the exception to this rule but I’ll point that out when I get there.

1. Ursa Minor

This is one of the volcanic pinnacle sites, and not shown in the Eastern Caribbean dive site book I have (or on Saba Deep’s own site listing, oddly enough). It’s a fairly flat-topped pinnacle at 110 feet or so used for a morning’s first deep dive of the day – we descend the mooring line and just explore the flattish top of the pinnacle. My watch shows max depth of 105’ and total time of 38 minutes (only 20ish at full depth of course), diving 30% Nitrox which at a conservative 1.4 PO2 max gives us 121’ max depth. As this was our first dive in Saba I just have this overwhelming memory of “WOW… WOW… WOW”. I couldn’t even think of what to look at because it was all ‘in bloom’…and I didn’t bring my camera this time as again it was the first dive in Saba and my first to this sort of depth. With deeper blue all around as the edges of the pinnacle dropped off, you really felt suspended on the cusp. I didn’t notice any large pelagics passing on this dive, but got better at spotting them later. We did find three nurse sharks resting in a particularly good hollowed-out space in the flora.

2. Diamond Rock

Diamond Rock is also a ‘pinnacle’ but one whose top actually makes it up past the surface to a height of 30 – 40 feet (?) above the water, a little bit off the western side of the island. Apparently there was once a lighthouse up at its peak in the past. Black volcanic rock covered with white guano, hence the appearance of a big white spike. As Mike Myers puts it the dive is like a ‘wall dive in the round’ as you descend and then spiral your way up around the rock, with coral growth extending on the bottom surface surrounding the spike as well. You can circumnavigate the entire rock on one tank, current conditions permitting. My watch shows a max of 82 feet at 40 minutes dive time (the ‘outward’ side of the rock is about 80’ to the bottom, the ‘island’ side of the rock hits about 60’). Good dive with many eels, all sorts of fish up and down the coral-encrusted rockface, the works. Oh, by the way they told us this site is officially on the boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, so we dove two bodies of water on one tank. Neat, eh?

3. Babylon

This is a shallower sort of multitiered dive site along a slope, depth about 80 foot max again but most time spent 70’ and above (my watch shows total dive time 49 minutes, avg depth 45’). Interspersed sections of volcanic (dark gray) sand with rockfaces with coral growth in kind of a terraced effect, so you can zigzag your way along it. Fish of all types, sponges of tubular and other forms, brain and bowl coral and anenomes everywhere. Not much soft coral growth at all – all hard and sponges. Current did a 180 degree reverse on us during the dive but wasn’t ever anything we were fighting much. There are spots here too where – toward the bottom of the kind of tiered slope there are large mustard-colored sulphur concentrated spots in the otherwise dark gray volcanic sand. Stick your hand in and you can FEEL the heat underneath. (There are other well-known dive sites around Saba, namely one called “Hot Springs” where geothermal sulphur vents are better known, but we were told they’re all over not just in the one or two places most people think.)

Incidentally on this dive I lost my grip on my camera and my wrist lanyard wasn’t tight enough, which with the case not being neutralized with weights means it floated to the surface. I noticed it when it was only about 10-15’ above me but decided (even had things turned out otherwise, correctly I’m still sure) NOT to bolt for it. Better spare the lungs and lose the camera. Told the dive master, Mike with hand signals and we sort of marked the location we were at in the site mentally. We continued the dive because we had another 15 to 20 minutes remaining at that time, and at the surface, with the wind going one way and the current another, he still knew the site and local environment well enough that when we dropped the mooring he spotted it and was able to scoop it up undamaged within 5 minutes. I was flabbergasted and (needless to say) extremely grateful. And when he not-too-pointedly loaned me a backup secondary coil lanyard and clip for my BC to make sure even if it slipped off my wrist lanyard it still was attached, I accepted the loan with good grace and made damn sure not to repeat the mistake. (I made new ones, of course. &#61514; )

4. Outer Limits

This was the first dive of the second day (July 11th) around Saba, again a pinnacle dive. Unlike Ursa Minor this one has a rougher topography. Dive hit a max depth of 117 feet, 36 minutes total time, per watch and wife’s computer. As with Ursa Minor, you couldn’t really ‘see’ any of the rock face – it was all totally encrusted with corals, sponges, etc. The fish concentration here was really incredible too – I spent as much time turning my back to the bottom and looking at the huge number of fish cruising around between me and the surface (or over the side to the real depths) as I did looking at the flora structures. We did see one small shark cruise past, as well as a few barracuda as we were in the transition depths down the line to the site. Caught a turtle wandering around over the peak and got him on candid camera as well.

<to be continued>

 

[RTRski]

SABA SITES DIVED, Continued

5. Green Island

This was the second dive of the day, as it was farther away. Green Island is a large rock off the northern side of Saba and the only one beside the main island itself with any greenery, hence the name. Rarely diveable due to the northern side of the island usually not having favorable wind/current conditions, so we got lucky to have one of the 30 days or so a year it is available. (Guess incipient weather conditions to the south gave us this window, so it’s the first time I’ve ever been grateful for development of a new storm system, Emily in this case, which was a tropical depression at the time). Its also a site that is more influenced by Atlantic ocean conditions than Caribbean sea conditions, or so we were told.

As with Diamond Rock the island is circumnavigable on one tank with the right dive leader. I show a max depth of 76 feet but average 38 feet. This is one of the few truer ‘coral reef’ sites around the island, with most of the flora growing on a substrate of old dead elkhorn coral hammered by hurricane Lenny in 1996 (?) with a lot of sand as well of the whiter variety. Vis was good overall but over the sand crossing where there was some current and through a narrow ‘slot canyon’ sort of cutthrough with some surge the visibility dropped due to stirring of the bottom to maybe 50 feet or so. Otherwise we saw 60+ foot vis. The first 10 minutes or so are a slow descent and traverse from the mooring point at around 20ish to 30ish foot depths to where depths hit about 60’ and at that point the dive really begins as you circle the outward side of the rock. Mostly soft coral gardens spread on boulders that have broken off of the main rock peak itself, lots of fish – totally different ‘feel’ of dive from the majority of the volcanic-dominated landscapes seen before. Nice wall-like feeling circling the rock with at some points crashing surf overhead on the teeth of the rock and in the slot canyon like feature there are surf-rounded rocks tumbling back and forth with the surge as you go through. Good fish, good variety of spongy and soft growths, nice site but at not such deep depths overall. Total dive time was just under an hour (54 minutes).

6. Big Rock Market

This was an amusing little site, whose name (according to Olivier) is not to be mistaken for the Big Rock Market on the island itself. The latter is named for a big rock next to the market – the dive site is named because it looks like a ‘market of big rocks’. A whole field of huge boulders strewn over a grey volcanic-sand bottom, with soft coral and sponge growth all over the rocks, covering more than half their available exposed surfaces. We saw some nurse sharks in motion, got some really good close-up shots of a couple of garden eels, all sorts of smaller fish types and crustacean like arrow crabs and the like. At this site you basically just meander around all the boulders until your air runs low and you have to ascend. Max depth 45’, average more like 32’ so sunshine makes for good picture taking, bottom time over an hour by my watch (diving 34% Nitrox for this one). Not too deep, nothing too challenging, just an amusing, busy little dive site with lots to see.

7. Shark Shoal

This was the morning dive of the third day, where we switched to plain air, and the deepest and most challenging one we did. Shark Shoal is another pinnacle dive where (per the name) sharks are pretty frequently sited. The pinnacle ‘peak’ is actually more of a twin peak with a trough in the middle, and there are significant underhangs around the edge from coral outgrowth as well, providing a really varied topography. From the start the dive is a bit ‘scary’ as the bottom is completely invisible below the mooring until you’re a good 40-50 feet down, then it comes into view (pinnacle is about 100’ down). Vis was about 60 feet once you got down there…the view into the abyss down the sides of the pinnacle into darkness was pretty awe-inspiring. You spend the dive around the top and along the edge of one of the ‘peaks’ and cross the trough to the other (I don’t know the depth of the trough itself but I’d guess high 130s perhaps). Like Outer limits the sheer mass of fish surrounding the site is amazing. It lived up to its name too: I saw and was pointing at a smallish reef shark passing sedately in the distance as we descended and had everyone pointing back at me for some reason. I was told later another, larger one was sauntering by right behind and over my head that I never noticed. <shivers> Later on the ascent the dive master spotted a school of ‘small’ tuna – about 2-3 feet long – and a good sized wahoo also cruised by. As with the other pinnacles the site is a volcanic peak with hard coral and spongy encrustations to the point you can no longer identify the original rock surface easily or at all.

This is the dive I think I narked a bit, as I got really overcautious and paranoid (check watch…check air…check buddy, check dive leader, repeat…), so I didn’t enjoy it as much ‘during’ but afterwards found myself doing the “WOW” mantra again. Another diver reported he felt kind of giddy too. Max depth recorded by my watch was 128 feet. Although my wife’s computer never showed us hitting deco limits we did perform a safety stop at 70, 40, and 20 to be extra sure, since this is a pretty ‘flat bottom’ profile dive. (Did the same at Outer Limits, I just didn’t mention it then…) Another notable event was catching a small spotted moray wriggling his way in one sponge tube and out another – with a caught fish in his mouth. Got it on camera but unfortunately it flashed and my white balance was set for without flash, so the pic is all red washed….will see if I can recover anything from it with PhotoChop…

8. Man-o-War Shoal

Unfortunately our last dive at Saba, but definitely not the least. This is another seamount/pinnacle type site, but shallower, with the peak just far enough up (40 – 50 feet?) to have been a danger to deep-draft Man-o-War ships back in the day, hence the name (and their alternate name, “Pilot Rock”). The mount bottoms out in flat volcanic sand at about 70-75 feet (my watch shows max depth 73 feet, total time 51 minutes, avg depth 46 feet. As before all sides of the rock are totally encrusted, and since the max depth here is known you can kind of pull a neat Superman-like vertical “fly” down the side if you’re good at clearing continuously in a rapid descent. In the sand surrounding the mount we saw stingrays, jawfish popping out of holes in the sand, etc. The dive profile is to circle up in a spiraling ascent from the bottom.

This mount is small enough in circumference, and has some distinctive side offshoots that form little barriers you ‘hop’ over as you go around, that in the course of a single dive you get to know the location really well and feel very comfortable for your location relative to the mooring line (sunk in the top) and the dive boat. We circled at least 3-4 times during our dive. Reportedly this site has a couple of ‘giraffe eel’ mated pairs that have been spotted (which was perplexing even to the dive master who says they’re not supposed to be outside of the South American coast) but I didn’t see them myself this dive. As with the other pinnacle formations the mount is swarmed by fish on all sides. Visibility for this dive was probably the best yet at 70 feet plus (you could easily see the peak and the sandy bottom from the surface) and current was pretty much non-existent. With the clarity of the water and the small-diameter ‘spiraling’ dive profile you didn’t even have to be too cautious about keeping up with the divemaster, as you could always see bubbles to know where the others in the group were around the rock ahead of you (we did stay in buddy pairs at least, of course). I’d happily have done this same site another time or two, just exploring slowly at different depths.

OH SHUT UP ALREADY:

Well, that’s the wrap. Hope this info proves useful to some of you thinking of dive locations in the Caribbean. I haven’t been to Belize, Bonaire, or some of the other so-called “premiere” sites so I may not have the experience by which to compare it, but diving at Saba has been the most phenomenal I’ve ever done. It was like an alien planet down there with everything covered, colored, extruded, shaped, tubuled, branched, etc. The diving off Sint Maarten was pretty much as others have reported it – worth diving if you’re there, but not worth going to Sint Maarten JUST as a dive destination. Still, SXM is the best air hub for flying to Saba via Winair’s Twin-Otter flights (or to catch a ferry from) so if you’re gonna do one, may as well do them both. Next time though we’ll probably cut the SXM diving time and crank up longer in Saba, if we don’t try another part of the Caribbean or South/Central American coast entirely.

 

[CSD1129]

Welcome back!
Glad you had a good time and the diving seemed pretty good too! My turn next!

When you were with dive safaris did you dive with Jefferson and Steve? They're really cool guys...great instructors too! This will be my third year diving with them. Thinking about doing Wreck Diver while I'm there.

 

[RTRski]

Jefferson - definitely. He lead all 3 dives we were on. Steve is the redheaded Irish guy, right? If so, he was there too. Also a younger-looking gent from Cuba whose name escapes me, and a friend of theirs from England.

Enjoy your trip, but keep your eyes on the weather. Many thunderstorms while we were there despite both Dennis and Emily missing SXM totally. Rather early for 5 named storms so this season's shaping up to be a doozie....

 

[plainsong]

The report really gives a nice comparison between SXM and Saba. I also like that extra 411 on the guys over at Saba Deep (i.e. food, personalities and gear treatment). When I head down there, hopefully soon, I will know what my plans will be like: Save $$$ by keeping the dives on SXM to a minimum then slurp over at Saba. :fruit:

 

[RTRski]

I still think SXM is worth diving at least one day if you're heading through there to Saba anyway - at least on 'better' days when the weather allows the better sites. I know we didn't hit any of the really good ones by reputation, but by the end of the week we were certainly enjoying ourselves nonetheless. The vis had the potential of being pretty good in less stormy conditions. And there's something liberating about diving 'wide open' sites - which describes most of the SXM sites - as opposed to some of the more 'vertical' sites like the Saba pinnacles where you feel a little more cooped into a smaller area (bound by max depths and pinnacle peak vertically, and 'horizontally' by the fact that its just open water when you get away from the slope). Ironic that having 'open water' can feel sort of limiting, but since we're mostly after diving at interfaces of water and "stuff to see" I think you'll get my meaning.

Saba definitely wins hands-down for the sheer diversity and beauty of the hard coral growths, but doesn't have any wrecks I'm aware of if you like diving them. And the fishier sites at SXM (e.g. Tiegland) had as many fish as Saba's dives did, just maybe not the same variety.

If I had it all to do over again we would stay longer on Saba ourselves than we did this time, and we'd stay in nicer accomodations with AC. [We stayed in the "El Momo" cottages, which was very nice in its own way, but more for the ecotourist on a budget - solar showers, no AC, not even ceiling fans, and kind of noisy because of the bugs/tree frogs in the surrounding forest. We still got good enough sleep, but we were feeling a bit sticky and moldy after two days of never really drying out completely (seawater by day, humidity by night). On the other hand, Angelika does make FANTASTIC banana rum and a wonderful tropical banana spread for breakfast, so those were benefits we might not've encountered otherwise.]

If you do make it down there tell Mike and Mike you saw good things said about them on Scubaboard. They'll probably figure out who I am from the camera story.

 

[OBXDIVEGUY]

Thanks for the ton of info! I dove with Dive Safaris back in November when I was briefly there on a cruise. St. Maaten had some great diving, but I really loved the island as a whole as well. I certainly refer to your report when I plan on going back there some day!