Utila Dive Centers Recommendation

[LarryNJ]

My son who's 20 years old and I are going to Utila to get our OW certifications. We'll be there from 4/29 - 5/10. I have only had a one resort dive and he has no experience. As of now the first week we will be staying at the Lighthouse. The next few days I was thinking about staying somewhere out of town maybe on the Cays.

Because their locations are close to the Lighthouse I was thinking one of these 3, Altons, UDC or Underwater Visions to take our classes. Any suggestions and thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jrankney1]

All are good. We spent a week diving at Alton's and stayed next door in a small hotel..can't remember name, but was about 50$/night. Alton's does a nice job training you..I was there to do my Master Scuba Diver cert so did lots of classes. Boats are nice, training is solid and relatively inexpensive. Really you can't go too wrong on Utila.

 

[Rainer]

It's farther away than those three, but I'd highly recommend Coral View. First, they *will* pick you up in the morning and drop you off after diving (free), so that helps eliminate much of the concern about being further away. Second, they have a much nicer property than the others, with their own house reef (makes good snorkeling and shore diving a viable option). Third, we just really liked the owners and DM.

Trip report: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/bay-islands/475038-utila-trip-report-[photos-hd-video].html

Video:

[video=vimeo;85104732]https://vimeo.com/85104732[/video]

 

[diversteve]

The Cays are really shallow in some areas. As in scrape the prop on the bottom shallow in one place. And I think there's only one dive operator out there. IMO it's not really a particular advantage to stay out there for diving since much of the better diving is off the north/south shores. Since the north is mostly uninhabited, boats from town go there daily. It's also often the deeper diving. Some of the West End dives are more advanced also. The Cays did seem like a pretty funky place to visit, I wish we had.

As newly certified divers there's some shallow good sites just west of town on the south - we stayed at a resort off the Pretty Bush dive site - every afternoon thee was dive training/cert dives happening there with one/more of the in-town operators. Black Hills IMO is one of the best shallow dives on Utila - it's a pinnacle that rises to within 45' of the surface. Just a little SE from town.

 

[LarryNJ]

Thanks for the info all.

Rainer that video is nothing short of amazing. Great job! I just got a GoPro the other day to use on our trip for pics and video.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I spent a week at Altons and it was awesome! Accommodation is the most basic costing only 10 USD / day but the diving services are awesome. We were diving the north side a lot and there were a lot of whale shark encounters. Dive guides were so much fun. They would ask you for the type of dive you wanted to do and make your wish come true! Awesome group to dive with.

 

[timt97]

Very nice video!