Divers respond help

[Shell]

Hi

Splendor of the Seas April 9th 2005.

itenary

Georgetown grand CAyman
Costa Maya
Belize
Cozumel

Best to dive. Cozumel is already planned with Blue Angel dive/snorkel combo
Need opinions on the other locales.

Where to dive? What operators and if I only scuba dived one other port besides Cozumel would you choose?

Thanks

[alison1170]

I dont think Costa Maya has anything, but then again I havent been there in awhile. If you do Cozumel, Id skip Costa Maya. Belize is supposed to be nice, but havent been there. Grand Cayman is great. There are wrecks, walls, stingray city.....I do that just for the walls. Theres nothing like swimming over the reef and watching it drop off suddenly, or just hanging out over the dropoff looking at the wall. There are swim throughs as well. If you can, some of the best diving is off the north wall (just north of Stingray City) but if he weather is iffy or its rough, they wont take you out there. I spent a week there back in the early 90s (when it wasnt so built up like it is now) and did over 20 dives. I was staying at the Hyatt so I used Red Sail Sports. Bob Sotos is good too. There are so many operators it will make your head spin. Go pick up Rodales Scuba magazine and check out all the ads, then go online and see what all is available. If you ever get a chance to check out the smaller sister islands (Little Cayman and Cayman Brac) they are really nice as theyre not as populated and all you really do there is dive.

Alison

[bluefish]

There is diving in Costa Maya, well actually it is in the small town of Mahahaul just to the south of the cruiseline built port facilities of Costa Maya, which is not much more than a strip mall with "duty free" stores and t-shirt shops IMHO.

In addition to diving in Cozumel, I would dive Grand Cayman. I used www.neptunesdivers.com in March and can recommend them as being quite cruiser friendly. 8 divers max on their boat.

The diving in Belize can be really good too, but is more costly and takes the whole day because of the distance from where the ship anchors to where the good diving is. This is one of the few ports where I would use the ships excursion just because the planning/ logistics is some much easier.

I am going to Roatan, Honduras and Grand Cayman in November. My wife doesn't dive, so we're snorkelling with the stingrays in Grand Cayman (anyone have any thought on who to snorkel with.. I'm thinking Capt. Marvin). How about diving in Roatan? Anybody been there either to dive or just as a destination?

[LisaK]

cruiser 99 - we have used Captain Marvin and loved our tour. The boats are smaller not the cattle boats that some tours use, the guides were very helpful, friendly and they knew the best spots.

[Darcy]

Shell

Try startours.bz for diving in Belize.

Darcy