St. Martin or St. Maarten?

[grouchyturtle]

Grunzster,

The pinnacle dives are usually the first dive of the day. I'm guessing that if you ferried over from St. Maarten, you might have arrived late morning, too late to get in on the first dive. Sometimes they will do a deep pinnacle dive on the second dive if all of the other divers are agreeable to it, but the issue then becomes available no-deco bottom time. So, in answer to your question, yes, overnighting allows you to get in on the deep pinnacle dive the next morning - either that or taking the 7:00ish AM to Saba out of St. Maarten instead of ferrying over.

Should you still decide to ferry over the next time, there are a couple of shallower pinnacle dives that you can request as a second morning dive, subject to the other divers agreeing to it: those are Diamond Rock and Man'o'War Shoals. These are very decent dives in the 70-80 max depth range. Tedran Wall and Tent Reef Wall are a couple of wall dives that can also be done as second dives, but I like Diamond Rock and Man'o'War Shoals better.

I've also heard they won't take the day trip people to those spots, because they don't know you. They kind of prefer to do a few dives with before those sites, so they can see you in the water and get a feel for your ability.

Next time? HAH!!! Next time, I'm spending the whole week in Saba.

 

[grouchyturtle]

Diamond Rock was my absolute FAVORITE dive at Saba.

And so close to the port, that I was convinced we'd do one of our dives there.

 

[5615mike]

side of the island is all personal taste. I have been to STX 5 or 6 times and personall prefer the Dutch side but thats me. The north side of the island is a bit stuffy for me. Prefer the more laid back Dutch side............but thats just me.........lol

The diving is not great but its always better than not diving at all. Just dont get your hopes up too much for world class diving. You will need to fly 17 miles S/SW to Saba for that. The plane ride and landing alone are worth the trip.

 

[tadzio]

ive been diving on st maarten for 10 years and it is one of the best diving ive done. of course if you go with catlle boats they wont carry you to the good spots. try the smaller dive shops and youll see what i meen.

 

[tadzio]

ive been diving on st maarten for 10 years and it is one of the best diving ive done. of course if you go with catlle boats they wont carry you to the good spots. try the smaller dive shops and youll see what i meen. on a side note, i have dived everywhere in a world so i can compare it to a few places.

 

[moeronn]

Bumping this thread back up.

My wife and I are heading to St Maarten for a week the second week in August. We're also thinking of going an overnight trip to Saba. The main thing we need to find is a very good dive operation that does all the (what should be) standard predive "orientation." Both my wife and I are AOW certified, but really only dive on vacation so she needs to be extremely confident in the dive operator to feel comfortable enough to dive. The smaller the group the better. We've had a few trips aborted due to insuffient comfort level for her.

The ideal situation would be to get at least one day of diving off of St Maarten to get comfortable and then book an overnight to Saba. I'm just concerned that we would need more advanced reservations for diving, lodging and perhaps even transportation to Saba.

Any input on who to dive with to make my wife more comfortable and the best way to arrange for the Saba overnight is appreciated.

One last thing - my wife is Nitrox certified, but I am not. Would it be worth while to get certified before the trip, especially now (IIRC) that it can be done out of the water?

Thanks.