St. Martin Diving

[Stoo]

Hello All...

I want to take a week in October to dive. For a number of "non-diving" reasons, St. Martin has some appeal, but I have been unable to find much information about diving there. I have contacted a couple of shops there and, according to them, it's the best diving in the Caribbean!

Can anyone give me a less biased opinion. I have been diving all of the usual spots... Cozumel, Bonaire, Belize, Cayman, T&C etc, so comparisons to any of these would be helpful! Any recommendations regarding specific operators would be appreciated as well.

Thanks "large" folks.

Stoo

 

[5615mike]

Stoo

If you have been diving at those spots then St. Marteen will be a real let down. Not much to see there. If you take a short hop over to Saba......now theres some real diving. Only about a 15 minute flight. All wall diving since Saba is volcanic. Dive Safaris is good operator in St. Marteen if you must dive.

 

[Stoo]

Hi Mike...

Thanks for your reply... it confirmed what I suspected! I was not aware of the Saba connection, so I will look into that. I am a little concerned about the hurricane situation as far north as St. Maarten anyway.

My dilemma is that my g/f is recovering from a broken leg, so we have been trying to find an easy access (i.e. direct flight...) location. The hot spots all involve transferring planes at least once, coming from Toronto...

The search continues... thanks again!

S

 

[5615mike]

Transfers.........I know. I can't get anywhere in the Antilles without going thru Puerto Rico and that can be a head ache. You might consider Playa Del Carmin or somewhere on the Rivera Mya. You'd be on the yucan mainland and could fly direct to Cancun. The diving is not as good as Coz but quite good.

Just a thought

 

[-hh]

Stoo once bubbled...
Hello All...

I want to take a week in October to dive. For a number of "non-diving" reasons, St. Martin has some appeal, but I have been unable to find much information about diving there. I have contacted a couple of shops there and, according to them, it's the best diving in the Caribbean!

Can anyone give me a less biased opinion. I have been diving all of the usual spots... Cozumel, Bonaire, Belize, Cayman, T&C etc, so comparisons to any of these would be helpful!

Not as good as any of these destinations.

While there are some interesting sights in St Martin (there's a rocky shoal up in the NE corner), there's a lot that's not. I spent a short week there a few years ago and towards the end, I wasn't even bothering to carry my UW camera on the dives.

You'll also probably find that some of the shops that you query only offer one price for diving, regardless of if you bring your own gear or not. The customer base seems to be the "Cruise Ship" types, whose idea of diving is that its an alternative to renting a Jetski for the afternoon, etc.

The good news is that there's other points of interest on the island. Do make it a point to go visit the butterfly farm. Do make it a point to grab lunch in the "Lo Lo's" along the waterfront in Grand Case...and do come back to Grand Case for fine dining at dinnertime. There's also a nice art gallery in downtown Phillipsburg, and there's an old fort on the point in Little Bay with a couple of rusty cannon in it (pointing across Great Bay, right at the cruise ship docks , which is supposedly technically open to the public, but you have to go through the Divi property to get to it...if you walk beyond the hilltop fort proper, there's a small island off the point that's a seasonal nesting seabird colony.

The international airport is Juliana Airport (south Dutch side). Plan to avoid driving too much through Marigot on the west side...very heavy traffic is typical.


-hh

 

[Stoo]

Thanks guys...

I think the diving reasons for the trip all of a sudden became more important than the non-diving reasons... I tink I'll bite the bullet and head back to Bonaire or Curacao... no hurricanes, good diving.

You just helped me avoid a lousy holiday!

Thanks again!

S