Scuba Diving in Speyside

[Jey Barbour]

Diving:
Aquamarine Divers were very good. The owners are from Trinidad, so it's hands-on. They won us over by buying our interisland flight tickets for us! You can't buy them with a credit card, either over the internet or the phone. Someone has to physically go to the ticket office. The manager, Stuart, is excellent in his service and knowledge of the operation. He's also an excellent divemaster and dive guide. The boat captains and other divemasters aren't quite as enthusiastic about their work but were quite adequate. The boats were ideal, accommodating 10-12 divers comfortably, and covered for the short trips out and back.

Boats go out at 10:30am and 1:30pm, which is an unusual schedule. If there were lots of other things to do there, that might be a problem. But there really isn't on that end of the island. Speyside and Charlotteville, a 10-min. drive across the ridge to the Caribbean side, have a few restaurants. Nothing really great, either food or service, but quite adequate.

The diving was dependent on conditions, like weather and wind and currents. Half the dive sites (we dove 10) were mediocre, with reduced vis, minimal coral and fish. And the other half were excellent, with ones like Japanese Gardens being as good as any I've seen in the Caribbean. Abundant hard and soft corals, and a great variety and abundance of fish. We saw only one nurse shark and one turtle; these dive sites are known for sharks and mantas, but I suppose that's seasonal.

[Steve Wooler]

Hi Jey

Thanks for that interesting report. Its good to hear that Stuart Sampson is making his mark at Aquamarine.

Stuart has read your post and wrote to me asking me to point out that since your post he has introduced a schedule consisting of two morning dives, with the first leaving at 09:30 and the second at 11:30. This gives the opportunity for a third dive at 13:30hrs.

He also says that you are correct about the Mantas being seasonal. They are mostly around from December to May when the waters are a little cooler.

[Jo B]

I was going to post a review of our experiences at Aquamarine during early October in a separate thread, but Jey has said most of it for us.

We decided to dive with Aquamarine for two reasons - firstly because it got good reports here, and secondly because Alice was very prompt to answer my email enquiries. Unfortunately we didn't meet Alice as she was in the UK at the dive show during our visit.

For reference, I am qualified PADI Advanced who just missed out on hitting 50 dives during our visit, Steve is qualified Rescue Diver with more than 60 dives to his name. All our diving has been in warm water on holiday. This was our first experience of Tobago although we had dived in St Lucia in previous years.

We were staying in Castara, so did the journey each day to Speyside, fitting in 4 days in total. This really wasn't any hassle, as we soon became to enjoy the drive, especially across the top to Roxburgh. We thought about staying one night at BWI, but decided against it, as it didn't have the sort of ambience we like - a bit too utilitarian in design, it seemed to lack atmosphere, plus its isolation from the rest of Speyside. But it was fine for between-dive lunches - the flying fish sandwich was particularly good.

We would agree with Jey that Stuart certainly gave a professional touch to the operation. He was always willing to offer advice and have a chat. Sadly we didn't get the opportunity to dive with him. Karen on reception also warrants a special mention for her cheerful and helpful attitude.

Conditions were mostly pretty good for the season it seems, although visibility was variable, and one morning was pretty rough with a rather hairy entry and exit (especially for a wimp like me). We did all the main sites within easy reach of the dive shop - Japanese Gardens, Coral Gardens, Black Jack Hole, Bookends, etc. Like Jey, we only saw one nurse shark and one turtle, but there was plenty of smaller reef life to be seen on all the dives. The colour and variety of the corals is amazing, and we had never seen angel fish as big as those in Tobago. The famous brain coral is certainly worth seeing too.

Diving in the low season had its advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage was that we never dived in a group of more than 4 plus divemaster. The disadvantage to this was that the other divers changed around and often included a new diver, so the choice of dive sites was then limited to those suitable for check dives.

We would agree that the divemasters weren't always as enthusiastic as one might hope, but we found they livened up as we got to know them. Giving them a lift into the village one day certainly helped. However, the briefings were always thorough, with an emphasis on safe practices. This was the first dive centre we had experienced where everyone had to carry an SMB. The boat drivers also seemed to know their job and were always within close view on surfacing.

We intend to return to Tobago next year and will certainly plan to dive with Aquamarine again. It is interesting to hear that they have added a third dive to their schedule, as this would make the effort of travelling over even more worthwhile. We will be happy to revisit the sites from this year, and look forward to trying some of the others that we couldn't fit in this time round.

Jo x

[Kevin Hampson]

Hi Steve, Jo & Jey,
I'm Just back from BWI and Aquamarine this week and the new dive schedual is working really well, I ended up with 18 dives including 4 new sites (well new for me any way) over the 10 days including a couple of night dives (another first at BWI) the early 9:30 and 11:30 enabled me to see a bit more of my long suffering non diving wife too.

Stuarts changes are working well and I'm sure he has some more up his sleeve.

I'm currently putting one of my dive reports together but IMHO Aquamarine is getting a lot better and it was pretty good to start with.

Regards
Kevin

[Steve Wooler]

Hi Kevin

Delighted you're back safely and had such a good time.

Thanks for the info on Aquamarine. We've had several greats reports since Stuart joined them and with the confirmation of someone of your dive experience, I'm delighted to say that I've been able to tweak their rankings.

Aquamarine are now officially a 5-star dive centre on the myTobago rankings - joining that select group of the island's best dive services.

All credit to Keith, Alice and Stuart.

[Kevin Hampson]

Hi Steve,
Great news to know their up there with the best in Tobago.

There was a lot more willingness do dives to the outer sites, We even got to London Bridge which was a first for me. Stuart is also planning runs to the Sisters once there is more chance of see hammerheads from around January, I may have to change my holiday dates next year.



Regards
Kevin