Where to dive in S. Caribbean?

We are going on a cruise through the S. Caribbean over Christmas with ports
of call being...

St. Thomas
St. Kitts
Grenada
Bonaire
Aruba

We will dive in only one or two ports. The only warm water diving we have
done is in Belize. Blue Hole, Lighthouse Reef. We are comfortable in the
water but are not very experienced divers.

Given this, what ports would be the best dive spots?

Reef Fish...

You may be the only person in the world who had been to 4 of those
5 but never been to St Thomas.

Got this from Peter Hughes Fleet this morning:

Dillon Pyron...

I can't disagree with the others on Bonaire. What I would suggest is
that you book your dives via the cruise line (which line/ship are you
sailing?). Yes, it will be more expensive, but it's pretty much all
inclusive and they tend to be tailored towards the relative newbie
like yourself. You can even do them with gear provided, if that's an
issue for you.

For someone coming in for a day with no real idea of what the island
is like and with very little experience, I'd recommend a ship's tour,

Reef Fish...

When the Wind Dancer has that kind of discount (and even when
the discount is less) it's usually the prelude to taking the boat
elsewhere, as it did in the Bay Islands and then Tobago. (I
had been on BOTH those Wind Dancer locations, Wonderful
boat, terrible diving.

But the $945 for the week is unheard of, even 10 years ago.

The only time I ever dived St Kitts was when the liveaboard in
Saba (the Caribbean Explorer) had to find some excuses to go
somewhere just so it can tell the land based divers at Saba
that they couldn't swim to St Kitts. Otherwise, Saba is much
better dived from land than from a liveaboard because no dive
site is more than 10 minutes from land, and the liveaboard
boats often couldn't moor at some of the best locations (such
as the Eye of the Needle) because of current conditions (as
was the case the week I was there).

My impression of St Kitts was that it was almost a toss up
between diving somewhere and diving nowhere. Yes, I dived
those crummy planes you dived there too. :-)

Rosalie B....

I have to agree. I have not been to St. Kitts, Grenada or Bonaire,
but I'd take St. Thomas over Aruba any day. So if I were doing that
trip, it would be Bonaire (which most people seem to like) and St.
Thomas for me.

I think for most divers, Bonaire would be a first choice (one that
I had never been! -- because it was the place the dive shops
always took their newbies right after cert; and I did ALL of my
dives after cert, for nearly a year, in Cozumel), and never went
to Bonaire since. The $200 roundtrip ATL to CZM (in 5 hours)
back those days vs $BIG roundtrip on KLM (in long hours) or
whatever contributed even to my NOT diving Bonaire today,
compared to CZM. The new direct flights on CO from EWR
to Bonaire (to start next year) cost $833 roundtrip from EWR and
slightly more ($860) from ATL, compared to the my ATL/CZM
trip two weeks ago ($308 !!).

I would think St Thomas would be most people's second choice,
and would be mine. Between poor vis and cold water and poor
viz and warm water, I take St Thomas over Aruba any day.

Marcin Dobrucki...

Stop on Bonaire, and go to the site called "Karpata". Someone else
can suggest something from the other locations.

-hh...

Karpata is a nice dive site, but if memory recalls, its accessed via
the one-way road loop, which means that the return trip is the "long
way" through Rincon, which can burn a lot of time for someone on a
cruise ship day excursion with a firm "be back by" time.

Marcin Dobrucki...

Yes, that's true. However, we are talking Bonaire.. the "long way"
is what... 10km? ;-)

Perhaps something like the first dive on the reef near the Hilma Hooker
to the south, then use your SI to drive up someplace else (probably
across town to the north) for a 2nd dive. The real question comes down
to how much time you have to work with during your port of call.

Marcin Dobrucki...

I was trying to dive Hilma from shore, and we got distracted by a
second buoy which was placed there, eventually ending up mid water
between two reef systems with a long way in either direction. I also
found the seas to be somewhat rougher in that area. At white slave, we
had to turn around having forced only about half the distance to the
reef. A 7min dive took over 50bar of at at depth of 3-4m. Perhaps it
was just a rough day.