Southern Caribbean SCUBA diving

My wife and I are taking a Southern Caribbean cruise in January aboard the Adventure of the Seas. We are stopping in St Thomas, St Croix, St Johns, St Lucia, and Grenada. We are both certified divers but haven't been SCUBA diving in about 5 years.

The two questions I have are: are any of these islands better for diving than the others? and are there any dive charters that will accept people that haven't recorded a dive in a while? The other option would be doing a refresher dive or a pool dive prior to leaving. Any one have any experience with this?

Of the ports on your list, I've only dove St. Thomas. Certainly nice, and very easy to dive from the cruise.

I teach SCUBA, and generally all winter long we have people coming in for update courses. It's a fairly straightforward process. You'll spend a few hours going over the basics of logging dives, and tracking your nitrogen uptake. Then you'll get in the pool, and review the skills you learned in your open water course, including your emergency skills.

A lot of students find it to be fun and valuable since - having actually had some dives of their own - they have an appreciation for the actual value of things, as opposed to the strictly theoretic view they get during their Open Water course.

Other options you have this time of year would include making a local dive where you are, and logging it; or taking a specialty course on some subject that interests you.

Harris

Denver, CO

You may be able to find a dive shop that will do a refresher course, but you'll likely pay more. If you book through the cruise, you'll have to have had a dive within 1-2 years.

I was on an excursion (not through the cruise line actually) and they wouldn't let one of the women dive as it had been three years.

If you have local dive shop and a place to take a refresher/check out dive before you leave home, I'd go that route. You have plenty of time between now and then and it will open up your options for you vacation without stress!

As a previous poster commented, I've also only dove in St. Thomas out of those on the list. My wife and I booked with a private dive operator, and were lucky enough to be the only divers on the boat. We used St. Thomas Diving Club and will definitely use them again the next time we are in St. Thomas.

One caveat, though, is that if you use a private dive operator, make sure you carefully coordinate your port times. Ship's time is most likely different than local time, and you need to ensure there will be no confusion.

As for being current in your dives, I would also recommend a refresher course BEFORE you cruise. That way you can devote your time to fun diving in the Caribbean, not just doing skills refreshing. Do that at home, or a local spot so you can save your precious port time for quality diving.

They are all fabulous places to dive although I haven't been diving in St Johns. St Lucia is awesome, Grenada is better, St Croix has Cane Bay wall, St Thomas is okay if they go outside the usual reef that cruise ship passengers get dumped on. Lucky you!!!!! I'll be diving with my scuba club in November - we're doing a western Caribbean cruise/dive. Then in December, I'll be diving in Tortola (RMS Rhone) and Nassau (Stuart Cove's). You just can't go wrong anywhere in the Caribbean. You may feel more at ease if you take a refresher course but once you get in the water, it all comes back pretty quickly. Just get properly weighted and you'll be fine.

over the years I've needed a refresher and used a Discovery Dive to fill that void. Usually in a Discovery they ask if anyone is certified and I say yes, and I'm using this as a refresher and they fine and worry about me less. I get a chance to review basic skills and buoyancy under supervision and feel good to go for anything the rest of the trip . . .

I just re-read my earlier response, and it sounds as if I meant you spend a few hours in the classroom, then time in the pool. In fact the entire refresher course is about 2.5 to 3 hours, for both classroom and pool. I apologize for being unclear.

Harris

Denver, CO

PADI RE-ACTIVATE

I could be wrong but I don't recall noticing this b4 .... it appears PADI has added an official 'refresher'. It is structured as part e-learning and part wet. On completion they'll issue a replacement c-card with a new piece of data . .

Haven’t been diving lately and want a quick scuba refresher? The ReActivate™ program is the perfect way to update your dive skills and knowledge from the PADI Open Water Diver Course before jumping back into the water. Whether you want a few reminders or need to go over the basics, ReActivate is personalized for you: You conveniently review scuba concepts on your tablet, mobile device or computer, then go diving with a PADI Professional. It’s quick and easy, and a good way to prepare for your next PADI course or get ready for a diving vacation. The best part is, divers who complete both the knowledge and in-water skill refresher receive a replacement certification card with a ReActivated date on it.

http://www.padi.com/scuba-diving/padi-courses/course-catalog/reactivate/

p.s. ReActivate is a new PADI program that may not yet be available in all areas.

PADI certification does not expire. Participation in PADI ReActivate™ is not mandatory, but recommended as an easy way to refresh your foundational scuba safety knowledge and skills if you haven’t been diving in a while. Divers who complete both the knowledge and in-water skill refresher receive a replacement certification card with a “ReActivated thru” date on it.

It's a great way for PADI to push their refresher program. Any way they can make money, they will. That aside, I believe any PADI instructor can give you a refresher course, it's just that now PADI will issue you a new(er) C card showing that you have done the refresher & you won't have to tote along your dive log book to prove your last dive was within the past year or so.

I don't teach anymore (the required instructor liability insurance cost was way more than I could ever earn in a year teaching scuba) but one of the PADI instructors in my scuba club teaches all the PADI courses up thru divemaster, including this 'new' refresher course. She holds a refresher course every May in a local pool and always has about 16 people sign up, even ones who have been diving for years, just to be able to practice before jumping off a boat. I had to take an instructor course in all of the specialties in order to be able to teach them. Check with a dive shop or if you know an instructor, the Reactivate course is worth it IMO. At least you won't have to worry about being denied a dive.

My suggestion would be to first contact your local dive center and ask them if they do a review program mine locally will do it either in a pool or at a lake and they charge about $40 more if you need to rent gear. St Thomas is the only location I have dived that you will be going and both times I have used http://www.admiraltydive.com/ I have been very pleased with them they run a smaller boat usually 6 divers plus a dive master, pick you up at the dock and return you to the ship with the plus being if the ship for some reason has to miss the port they don't charge you were other operators will may charge you unless you have discussed it beforehand. If you contact them before and they may be able to do your first dive as a refresher dive.

My wife and I are taking a Southern Caribbean cruise in January aboard the Adventure of the Seas. We are stopping in St Thomas, St Croix, St Johns, St Lucia, and Grenada. We are both certified divers but haven't been SCUBA diving in about 5 years.

 

The two questions I have are: are any of these islands better for diving than the others? and are there any dive charters that will accept people that haven't recorded a dive in a while? The other option would be doing a refresher dive or a pool dive prior to leaving. Any one have any experience with this?

This past February we dove in St Thomas, St Croix and Grenada. Grenada was definitely the best of the three but we enjoyed all of them. These were our first ocean dives and St Thomas was our first port. We contacted Coki Dive Center and let them know we were new divers and this would be our first ocean experience. We had a great dive master who took us along the reef for 1 tank and then we did the second tank on our own. I concur with the others about a refresher course before hand but if you don't want that then you could contact Coki Dive Center and discuss options and could possibly combine the refresher with a dive. They were great to work with and it was an easy taxi ride to their place with a great beach, bars and changing facilities so you can enjoy the rest of your day there (plenty of taxis waiting to take cruise ship passengers back).

On St Croix we did the ships excursions. It was decent diving but I was not that impressed with the operator, Cane Bay Dive Shop. Next time we will book with N2 the Blue. Both shops are at the pier but N2 the Blue appears to be a much more professional operation with better equipment, great staff and a nice shop.

In Grenada we booked with Aquanauts and had a fantastic experience. They transported us to their True Blue Bay Resort center, we then completed two great dives - a wreck and a reef - and then they dropped us off at Grand Anse Beach and arranged taxi back to the ship. We rinsed all of our gear and let it start drying out at the shop while we stayed at the beach - we just had to tell them when we wanted the taxi to pick us up.

Antigua hasn't been on our list for diving but next February we plan to dive in St Lucia as it is supposed to be great diving. Hope some of this helps even though our experience level is low.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I haven't been able to get on here in a few days but I think that I will try to do a refresher dive of some sort. I would hate to not be able to dive because of that.

We did a Caribbean cruise 2013 and went diving in St Thomas, St Lucia, and Grenada - Grenada was definitely the best of the three. I'd skip St Thomas altogether if we ever went there again and do something else. We used Eco Dive & Trek in Grenada and had a great time with them, and they met us at the cruise terminal so it was super easy.

We dove in St Thomas and St Lucia. We booked through Blue Island Divers on St Thomas. Thought they were awesome.

We booked through the cruise ship for St Lucia. I believe they used iyanola divers. The sites were great but we weren't impressed with he dive company. If we dove there again we would likely book private.

Of those islands mentioned, we've dove St Thomas on an earlier cruise. It wasn't anything too special, so on the recent cruise, we skipped it and instead went to some dumpy beach.

We've also dove St Lucia. We've dove extensively in the southern reefs before when we stayed in Anse Chastanet. The crooze ship dive ops generally take people to the closer reefs in the northern part of the marine park, which is where they took us. Condition was horrible due to the rain from the day before, so it is hard to compare. If we never dove St Lucia before, we would have rank it right there with Key West (maybe not that bad). But generally, the southern reefs of the marine park are much more desirable. You just have go find a dive op that takes you there.