Sunset Waters 4/26 to 5/3 anybody going?

[Quaff King]

Andreas.

Thanks for the great info. I've been told Watamula is a great dive so there is a high probability I will spend a morning diving with you guys. I get in to Sunset Waters on Satuday and I'm guessing I'll be a bit gassed. After a good sleep I'll be jacked up and ready to go. Hope to meet you and do a dive with your crew !
Quaff

 

[dogenia]

I'm local but I can only dive weekends due to work

Don

 

[Tennessee Slim]

QK, Sunset Divers does Watamula every Tuesday afternoon. It’s the only dive location they schedule in advance (otherwise they “poll” the divers on the boat). On rare occasion and by popular demand, they’ll send a boat on another day, usually Sunday p.m. You don’t find many who’ve dived there who won’t argue that it’s the best dive on the island. I certainly think it is.

 

[alashas]

In some ways, I understand Sunset catering to its clientele and apparently choosing that day where they are diving, but it does not faciliate serving a larger customer base of folks who would like to dive with them but are not staying at their resort.

On the other hand, Ocean Encounters West sent me a word doc of their 2 tank morning dives and they pretty much follow that 7 days a week. I suggest contacting them directly for their schedule:
http://www.oceanencounterswest.com/contact.php?s=std

They dive Watamula Tuesdays and Sundays, and I highly recommend that particular dive. I dove it twice, and, after the first dive, I wrote in my dive log [size=+2]O MY GOD!!!Unbelievable!!!![/size] It is a mind boggling reef of very healthy coral that look as though they are on steroids! We did it both times as an easy drift dive, but I understand the current can be quite a bit stronger. I haven't edited my Watamula photos yet, but here is the site from the boat:

And here are 2 of the best DMs on the planet, Tuki and Andreas:

safe diving, alashas http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/

 

[Tennessee Slim]

In some ways, I understand Sunset catering to its clientele and apparently choosing that day where they are diving, but it does not faciliate serving a larger customer base of folks who would like to dive with them but are not staying at their resort....

You’re right, alashas, Sunset is set up almost exclusively for the benefit of the resort’s guests. And I don’t wonder. I’m guessing I’ve done maybe 40 2-tank boat dives with Sunset in the past eight months. In every single case, I was the only customer on the boat who wasn’t also a guest of the resort. As far as (not) catering to independent divers goes, Habitat Curacao is pretty much in the same boat (no pun intended), which might be expected since Anne-Marie Vermeer used to be the manager of Sunset Divers.

But it’s not entirely because they’re catering to the resort’s guests, it also allows them to be opportunistic. I’ve been on Sunset trips bound for Pelican Beach because earlier dives had located a mated pair of frogfish there (and the female was pregnant). Or to Lost Anchor because a nurse shark was sited there earlier in the morning.

And you can’t predict in advance whether some sites will be diveable; you just have to put eyeballs on them and make the decision (Radio City is the first to mind). And some sites are known to be better sheltered and will attract divers when the seas are rough. Put ‘em together and you occasionally have traffic jams at the sheltered spots. I’ve been on dives intending to go to Mushroom Forest, for instance, but diverted after finding three other dive boats already moored there.

There's pluses and minuses to both ways of doing bidness, no doubt.

 

[lmorin]

.......

And you can’t predict in advance whether some sites will be diveable; you just have to put eyeballs on them and make the decision (Radio City is the first to mind). And some sites are known to be better sheltered and will attract divers when the seas are rough. Put ‘em together and you occasionally have traffic jams at the sheltered spots. I’ve been on dives intending to go to Mushroom Forest, for instance, but diverted after finding three other dive boats already moored there.

There's pluses and minuses to both ways of doing bidness, no doubt.

Exactly. We dove with Sunset Divers and like the flexibility a lot. As a result, we did Mushroom Forest twice, first as a slow drift dive (more like a one-way swim) over part of the reef that most people never do, then directly on the site. We also did Radio (Rediho??) City one day as the first dive, then because of the sea conditions being perfect, we did Hell's Corner, which I gather is not dived too often because the mooring is very shallow, with too much surge near the cliff. The DMs made the decision only after getting right on top of it. Hell's Corner was almost as good as Radio City, our favorite.