Question for expierenced divers/world travelers

[Rider1017]

My wife and I are starting to plan a trip for our 15th wedding anniversary (which is not until Oct 2013, so we have plenty of time).  We have four area's we are looking at right now that interest us.  They are Roaton Hondorus, Bonaire, Bahamas and St. Croix.  Obviously all have good and bad points.  We are looking to do a combination of shore diving and boat diving.  Some of the types of diving we would like to do on this trip is reef diving, wall diving, a nice wreck dive or two and I really would like to do a shark dive.  We are both owc and have around 25 dives each, so we are not very experienced (my wife prefers shore diving, she is a little hesitant about diving from a boat).  Any suggestions or information if you have been to any of these places.

[matt t.]

My suggestion especially to your wife, is that you guys get out and dive more off of boats. You have a year and a half, and without a whole lot of effort you could easily double or triple your experience with a pretty decent amount of recreational boat diving thrown in. I think your vacation diving experience will be greatly enhanced and much more enjoyable with a higher comfort level, especially on your wife's part. I'm sure the experienced warm water vacation divers will chime in that some of the places you are looking at have excellent easy shore diving, but nothing builds confidence and skill like experience.

[MikeS]

Yes, everything that Matt said.  Also, many places, like Cozumel offer the opportunity for a shore dive before the boat dive.  This gives the inexperience ocean divers the opportunity to get their weighting established (and other things)  before taking the boat plunge.  It also helps settle their pre-ocean dive nerves.  If fact, on our next Cozumel  group tripe, we are doing just that:  a group shore dive the day before our week of boat divesl

[Rider1017]

We would like to avoid Mexico, just don't want to go there.  We have already dove at Grand Cayman, so looking for something new.  We will try to do some boat dives before hand, possibly a trip up to Munising this summer. 

[wjeiii]

Just got back from CocoView Two walls A freighter wreck & a DC3 just off shore. Morning and afternoon boat dives with drop dives on the way in.

[malwolff]

While it is not on your list of locations, you might want to look at turks and caicos.  Has the walls, reefs, sharks plus whales if you are lucky enough and a couple of wrecks.

[Scubaal]

One place you listed that would meet most your requirements (minus shark dives) would be Bonaire. Very easy diving both boat and shore. Do as many or as few boat dives as you or your wife would like. Then grab a couple of tanks and do shore dives.
One down side to Bonaire is, there at least seems to be quit a bit of petty crime. If you check out scubaboard.com you can find endless decisions on the subject.

Al

[ttph]

I just got back from a cruise through the caribbean. We hit Roatan (Honduras), Belize City (Belize) and Costa Maya (Mexico). Out of the three, I enjoyed Belize City the most. We dove Turneffee Atoll. I saw a bunch of really cool small stuff (ie. garden eels, lion fish, school of barracuda, anemone's, usual bright fish, etc). I also had the best experience with the staff on the boat. I used Hugh Parkey's Belize Adventures. Roatan was an underwater circus- people running into each other and kicking masks off, shooting up to the service, crashing into the reef, etc. I didn't see a whole lot of anything in Roatan, but I think we went to the same spot they take all the tourists, so all of the sea life learned to go elsewhere. Costa Maya was also cool. Just like Belize, after the first dive the dive master said I didn't need to adhere to the 60 fsw max depth and could roam on my own. I saw an enormous sea turtle. I tried to pet him- he tried to bite me. Neither of us were successful. Costa Maya and Roatan were drift dives as opposed to anchored boat diving in Belize. We also hit Cozumel on the cruise, but I went golfing instead. Some of the divers on the cruise ship said they really enjoyed Cozumel diving, though.

Hope this helps,
Matt

[dfreeman]

I would recommend Bonaire for what you are looking for.  Easy to dive, shore and boat diving.  plenty to see.  Petty crime situation is overblown.

Doug

[Chris H]

Doug,
For the record, how many times have you been to Bonaire?
Chris