Diving in Barbados

[MoneyGuy]

I'm using a Frommers book to plan our cruise in the Caribbean. For some reason there is no info on diving in Barbados although there is definitely diving there. Is the diving there any good? Maybe it's poor and that's why the book doesn't cover diving there, but I doubt it. Comments??

[gmcrow]

I'm using a Frommers book to plan our cruise in the Caribbean. For some reason there is no info on diving in Barbados although there is definitely diving there. Is the diving there any good? Maybe it's poor and that's why the book doesn't cover diving there, but I doubt it. Comments??

Do Frommers guides usually include diving info? We recently returned from a cruise that included Barbados. We dove with West Side Scuba Center. We had some issues with the operator involving safety. They had borrowed a boat to accommodate an unusually large number of divers on that day. The captain was unfamiliar with the boat. Add to that a shore entry to the boat in strong surge and we were not pleased to start with. The reefs were not in great shape and we felt like they did not take us to the best spots. We dove St. Lucia prior and Curacao after, so our view of the dives may be slightly skewed by how awesome those dives were, but we weren't impressed. We will try it again however.

[Pilot70D]

We were just diving with West Side Scuba. They are the dive operator used by Celebrity. They did an excellent job and run a thoroughly professional operation.

 

We were a fairly small group that day and there were no beginners consequently we all went out on the same dive boat. The dive master and our dive leader were both very professional in every aspect of the dive from predive briefing until the last divers were back on board.

 

Do be aware that West Side Scuba is moving to a new location as I write this. Their old location was next to a restaurant and the owner didn't like divers traipsing through his premises. Relations between the two businesses became so bad that litigation ensued which provided most of the relocation impetus.

 

We will be back in Barbados again this year and we intend to dive with West Side Scuba again upon our return.

 

Hope this info ids helpful and enjoy that next dive.

[scubaran]

Hi,

 

I dove with West Side Scuba Centre and thought they were great. However diving in Barbados wasn't that great. Not many fish due to overfishing (as evidenced by the old fishing net I found in the middle of the reef). Also as pointed out, there aren't any docks on the island (don't know why, maybe a law or something) so all entries are via the beach wading out to the dive boat. If you want to dive in Barbados, use West Side Scuba (they have a web page). They were very good about picking up at the cruise dock and their people were very well trained and knowledgeable, too bad no fish to see.

 

Randall

[scubamargie]

We departed on a cruise from Barbados in late November and dove with Chantel of Dive Pro Barbados ( http://www.diveprobarbados.com/ ). We thought they were great. We dove "The Fort" and "The Boot" - saw turtles, sharp-tail eel, drums, flounders and all the usual tropical fish. The viz was 50-60 feet, not the best but still good. We have also used High Tide ( http://www.divehightide.com/ ) with excellent results. They will even pick you up at the cruise pier. I'd say definitely dive here if you can, although don't expect anything near Bonaire, Curacao or Dominica diving where the viz is 100+ and the reefs are magnificent.

[w&k]

We would never pass up a chance to go out with John & Mary Moore at Dive Barbados. http://www.DiveBarbados.net We are heading back for our 4th trip with them in just about a month.

 

Mary picks up at the cruise terminal, and they have a small boat and a classic dive shack on the beach.

 

Our kind of place, and our kind of folks - they are a hoot!

 

Have a great trip!

 

Wendy

 

pix

http://community.webshots.com/user/wendyandkeith

 

website

http://www.freewebs.com/wendyandkeith

[scubadiver888]

I'm using a Frommers book to plan our cruise in the Caribbean. For some reason there is no info on diving in Barbados although there is definitely diving there. Is the diving there any good? Maybe it's poor and that's why the book doesn't cover diving there, but I doubt it. Comments??

 

A book like Frommers isn't going to waste space on diving unless the location is renowned for diving, i.e. 80% of the people who go there do some diving, e.g. Tahiti or Bora Bora.

 

They understand that people interested in diving are going to supplement their Frommers with something like http://www.scubadiving.com or http://www.scubaboard.com. Surprisingly, a lot of people who go to the Caribbean do not dive (I used to be one of them; my wife still is).

 

I have not gone diving in Barbados but I plan on changing that in April. I have seen a lot of pictures from Barbados and there is definitely some great scuba diving there.

 

The fact that scubaran did not see any fish makes me wonder about West Side Scuba. A lot of people have recommended them but if they are good above water and not below is that really very good.

 

I've been theorizing that dive operators who supply the cruise ships might do that because they are not getting a lot of business from word of mouth. West Side Scuba is the company which does the dive excursions for Celebrity Cruises. Hmmm.

[gmcrow]

A book like Frommers isn't going to waste space on diving unless the location is renowned for diving, i.e. 80% of the people who go there do some diving, e.g. Tahiti or Bora Bora.

 

They understand that people interested in diving are going to supplement their Frommers with something like http://www.scubadiving.com or http://www.scubaboard.com. Surprisingly, a lot of people who go to the Caribbean do not dive (I used to be one of them; my wife still is).

 

I have not gone diving in Barbados but I plan on changing that in April. I have seen a lot of pictures from Barbados and there is definitely some great scuba diving there.

 

The fact that scubaran did not see any fish makes me wonder about West Side Scuba. A lot of people have recommended them but if they are good above water and not below is that really very good.

 

I've been theorizing that dive operators who supply the cruise ships might do that because they are not getting a lot of business from word of mouth. West Side Scuba is the company which does the dive excursions for Celebrity Cruises. Hmmm.

We have long suspected exactly what you are talking about 888. West Side Scuba is also the excursion provider for Royal Caribbean. That was what led to our bad situation. We were on a smaller ship with a small group of older, experienced divers on board. Explorer was in port on the same day, with a younger, less experienced, and way larger group of divers. It was simply more than the shop could handle safely and effectively. I am glad to see some good recommendations. Will try them in the future.

[scubaran]

The fact that scubaran did not see any fish makes me wonder about West Side Scuba. A lot of people have recommended them but if they are good above water and not below is that really very good.

 

I've been theorizing that dive operators who supply the cruise ships might do that because they are not getting a lot of business from word of mouth. West Side Scuba is the company which does the dive excursions for Celebrity Cruises. Hmmm.

 

Hi,

 

I don't think it was the reef. We did two different ones at different points of the island (besides, the reefs were very healthy and there's no fences so you'd think the fish population would migrate around to the best feeding areas). That's not to say the reef was devoid of fish, just nothing in the quantities I'd expected from a Caribbean island (and I've been to a bunch of them).

 

As far as WSC, I have to say they were great when I used them. I booked on my own with them because of their pickup at the dock and reviews at the time. They did something I'd never seen in the Caribbean which I thought was great. They actually asked, "How many dives have you done?", not "When was the last time you dove?". They had about 15 people from various cruise ships and hotels that morning and it turned out that 12 of them had 1-20 dives under their belt (I had about 100 at the time). They took the 12 people and put them on a boat with three dive masters and I assume went to shallow, calm reefs to dive, and put the 3 experience divers (me included) into a separate boat with one dive master. We went to a different reef in choppier water with a slight current and dove there (I'd have to check my dive log to see where we went). They allowed us to freely swim around, I assume the others did a "guided" tour, and I took pictures with the dive master as my buddy. It turned out that when I got back home and talked to my local instructor about the dive trip that he knew her from Stuart's Cove in the Bahamas (she'd recently moved down to Barbados for a change of scenery) and he had very good things to say about her. Sounds like other's didn't have as good of experience with WSC but I was very pleased with the service and diving, just needed to see more fish. :)

 

r

 

P.S. there were other creatures, we saw two turtles and a chain eel (which I've not seen another since), plus there was a large school of stripped parrots that came through but that, and the fishing net, are all that I remember from that trip as being noteworthy.