need help picking some dive sites

[afiremedic323]

Ok, So were on the Emerald Princess in Feb. What are the best places to dive at were going to. Cay's, St. Thomas, Aruba, Bonaire, Dominica, & Grenada, ? we have booked a tour with Blue Island Divers in St. Thomas any one ever used them ? we are also looking to book seperatly from the cruise line in some of these ports if it is a better or cheaper. any advice would be great also if you have thier web sites or other contact info that would be great.

[scubaran]

Ok, So were on the Emerald Princess in Feb. What are the best places to dive at were going to. Cay's, St. Thomas, Aruba, Bonaire, Dominica, & Grenada, ? we have booked a tour with Blue Island Divers in St. Thomas any one ever used them ? we are also looking to book seperatly from the cruise line in some of these ports if it is a better or cheaper. any advice would be great also if you have thier web sites or other contact info that would be great.

 

Bonaire is the "scuba diver's paradise" so I'd put this high on the list. I haven't been but I'm like the only one from my friends that hasn't been. The cool thing about Bonaire is it's almost 100% shore diving so you choose where, when and how long you want to dive. I'm sure other's can point to good operators but the scuba board (www.scubaboard.com) will be a good place as well since a LOT of people do vacations to Bonaire just to shore dive for a week.

 

Randall

[scubadiver888]

Ok, So were on the Emerald Princess in Feb. What are the best places to dive at were going to. Cay's, St. Thomas, Aruba, Bonaire, Dominica, & Grenada, ? we have booked a tour with Blue Island Divers in St. Thomas any one ever used them ? we are also looking to book seperatly from the cruise line in some of these ports if it is a better or cheaper. any advice would be great also if you have thier web sites or other contact info that would be great.

Greetings,

 

If you book with the ship in Aruba you will end up with Red Sail Sports. They are a large company with a varying set of dive masters. In other words, they are not great but they are not horrible. It is like the fast food of diving.

 

I've been hunting around for 2 years trying to get a recommendation for Aruba and always end up going with the ship.

 

I think it is hard to get a bad dive in Bonaire. If you want to be inexpensive you can just find a place and do shore diving. If you want to go out to Klein Bonaire (little Bonaire) you'll need a boat. I went with the cruise ship excursion and it was good. The dive shop was very professional and well prepared. When we showed up they had all the gear set up in packs for each diver. Almost military in the way they did things. In, out and diving in seconds. More time diving, less time fussing with equipment. I liked it.

 

Dominica is a great place to dive. If I had to pick only one place from your itinerary it would be Dominica. I think I dove with Dive Dominica when I was there. Imran was the lead dive master and took us out to L'Abym (the abyss). Incredible wall dive with a HUGE amount of sea life. Imran was great at pointing out things like frog fish. Even without his eagle eye there was more to see here then any of the other ports you have listed.

 

Grenada is okay. There are some interesting diving. If you are advanced wreck then don't go with the ship. Go to scubaboard.com and ask around there for who is current and good to dive with. I skipped diving Grenada last time I was down in the area but that was just because I wanted to see the chocolate and spice tours more than diving. I'm weird, I like baking almost as much as diving.

 

Looks like a great itinerary. Have fun.

 

Darrell

[psyfi]

We leave on the Emerald on the same itinerary this week. We have booked thru the ship in Aruba and Dominica. It happened that the 2 places we wanted to dive were also the least expensive excursions at $99 each. We decided not to do Bonaire as we are certain we will be going there for a land vacation at some point, whereas we would be unlikely to spend a week in Aruba (not our style). I can report back when we get back with comments.