Diving with Sublime Scuba

[Toine & Lia]

As Dutch divers we’re not familiar with clear waters, rich sealife and diving in a T shirt or shorty. We’re guys and dolls that rate a dive ‘very good’ when viz is up tot 3 meters, the watertemperature above 15 degrees Celsius and we spotted some lobster, small fish, shrimps and the odd crab or perhaps a seabass.

The challenge to dive in Tobago started with finding some info about the diving, divesites and providers.
So in search of a good provider for the boat diving we came this upon a review in this forum of Sublime Scuba. It seemed to be stationed at the Tropikist. And we were to stay at the Tropikist.
When we arrived, we contacted Barry St. George (owner and instructor of Sublime). The next day he came around to meet us, explained how things works with Sublime and made us an very good deal on the diving costs if we took a dive package of 15 dives. So we did.

We started at Mt Irvine and worked our way up to Englishman bay. We dived at Speyside which unfortunately couldn’t be done on Barry’s boat, but Barry arranged another provider to take care of us. Although things were well taken care off at Speyside, we missed the personal touch that Barry adds to his customers.

Because business was a little slow we were the only guest on Barry’s boat on most of the dives. We had a really good time on board with Barry and Tyrone. Both of them know what to do and were to look as well under as above the sealevel.
Under water they pointed out all the creatures that were worth looking at. They showed the rays, nursesharks, morays, lobsters, little stuff and lots of other interesting fish, corals or sponges. The things they said about what to expect, during the briefing, were mostly filled in the minute we hit the water.
Allthough we dived in other parts of the Caribbean we have to admit that the Tobagonian waters are a delight to dive. The differences between the Carib side and Speyside, the walls, the huge corals, the fish, turtles... in one word; amazing.

After each day of diving we sat down at Mt Irvine bay to do the ‘lime-thing’ that has become a trademark for SubLIME Scuba. Cool beer, little breeze, good music, nice conversations and good laughs.

Lia wasn’t able to dive due to a severe cold that kept her from equalizing the pressure. She managed to do only one dive. For Barry that didn’t matter when we balanced the score and settled the bill.(that’s something you don’t find everywhere)
We have to give Barry and Tyrone the credits for some excellent diving, the time we spent on the boat, the rental equipment we used (tip top shape) and the lessons in “liming”.

A last thing to comment on Sublime; most providers do a two or maybe three tank dive a day. That means one (or two) dive in the morning and another one after lunch. That means your busy all day. When your partner doesn’t dive…you’ve got a problem. With Barry a day diving means first dive between 9 and 10 AM, taking just enough surface time as required then plonge in for the second dive. In all, you will be back somewhere between 12 and 1 PM and have the rest of the afternoon to do all sorts of things.

We can’t speak for everybody but next time when we visit Tobago, Sublime Scuba is our provider. We would recommend it to all who love diving and liming combined.

Just to be complete; Barry can be contacted at [email protected] or you can visit his website on http://www.sublimescuba.com.

Kind regards,

Toine & Lia

[Steve Pitts]

Hi Toine

I recieved your email enquiry, regarding the fishing in Tobago, on the very day that our flight took us on our latest visit.
I think that our holidays must have crossed over at some point.

Our week-long fishing holiday was fantastic! We only fished the beaches, flats and rocks with lures - no boat fishing this time. We had Jack Crevalle to 12 kilos (check out http://www.mikeladle.com and select 'tactics' from the lower, left side menu for a report and pictures), Barracuda, Tarpon, and twenty other species including a 50 kilo Stingray from Pigeon Point beach, on a carp rod and 11 kilo braid (the stinger won that battle).

Please let me know how your fishing went.
Did you catch much and did you learn anything new?

Tight lines
Steve Pitts