scuba St Maarten or St Thomas

[hafpint]

I am a certified diver and I have never been to either St Thomas or St Maarten. My daughters 13 and 15 want to do the Discover Scuba course so they can dive.

My question is what island is best for diving ? and any recommendations on good dive shops that will do the DS course for my girls and take on a dive ?

 

Thanks in advance

[Middleager]

Coki Beach at St Thomas has excellent shore diving, for your daughter that'll take the Discovery scuba course. They do that (Discovery scuba) a lot.

[Dabaras]

I have found St. Thomas to be the better of the two, but both are great diving.

[omeinv]

Of the two, I also would rank St. Thomas above St. Maarten.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

[scubamargie]

We dove with Octopus Diving in St. Maarten and had a great time. Saw dolphins at the surface, eagle ray, nurse shark, stingray and lots more. I was pleasantly surprised since we had basically given up on St. Maarten from previous dives there. Octopus Diving is on the French side, but worth the short drive to get to it. Very nice operation.

 

We also did St. Thomas and it was very good too. We used Blue Island Divers. Maybe you can do both!

[SeaThruU]

We have been diving since the late 1980's and now have two teenage children that are PADI certified and have 40+ dives each in their logs. We have dove on both islands and we found that St. Martin reefs on the French side with Octopus Diving were not very colorful and there weren't many fish.

 

We have dove many times in St. Thomas and there are beautiful reefs and a lot of military wrecks not too far off shore. We always go diving with Blue Island Divers when in St. Thomas. They will pick you up on their boat next to the cruise ships and only take small groups of less than 8 persons.

[TreeCity]

Another vote for St Thomas and Coki Beach. I dive with them every chance I get. They were good when I was a beginner and I still like them as a dive master.