Dive Trip Planning Session

Sorry I've been tied up with a deployment, a change of jobs, and a move, all of which held me back from planning our next International Dive Trip. But, now is the time to plan and go. The Ocean is calling!!

I'll come with some information, but I am very interested in hearing about destinations you would like to do. I have a couple of ideas below, but we can talk about any. Our goal is to get at least 10 divers for our trips so its important to find out where everyone wants to go. Below are some ideas that I can talk about.

I am looking to plan up to 3 trips by the end of the year, and would like to get feedback on what people would like to do.

I will do research to determine what may be the best dive destinations for the club, which includes evaluating environmental factors. The Caribbean has been hit with Coral Bleaching, Stony Coral tissue Loss disease (SCTLD), and other challenges, so not always are the popular or famous destinations the best. If you want to have your input on destinations, this is the meeting to attend. It will be remote via zoom. r.

Tentatively I’m looking at dates around the following times:
Trip 1: Oct (still in hurricane season, so we will have to take this into account)
Trip 2: November/Dec
Trip 3: Jan/Feb/March (maybe Whalesharks??)
Though those can move a little.

Some options are:

Your Suggestions - ???

Belize Aggressor – Liveaboard trip to some of the best dive sites in Belize. Belize has one of the lowest air fares I have seen in the Caribbean, and this trip will be one of the best values for number of dives that we can get.

Belize Whale Shark Trip: Belize is the only destination near where you can scuba with Whale Sharks. The rest are snorkeling trips. Other destinations where you can dive with Whale Sharks are in Asia, and I think there are only 2 of them. We can discuss this for a March to May trip for 2026 which is the next Whale Shark Season.

Turks and Caicos Aggressor -- Best of the Turks and Caicos

Bonaire – Known as a prime Shore Diving Location. Our package will include 6 boat dives, Unlimited Shore Diving, rental Truck, and a couple of boat dives on the Wild Side. Bonaire is not in the Hurricane Belt, so we will probably try to plan a Bonaire Trip during the Hurricane Season. Boinaire is also a good value for number of dives vs cost of the trip. Being primarily shore diving, it is also verry flexible in that people can dive, not dive, as they see fit. I got 20 dives in last year on our trip, some got as little as 10 dives, but you can definitely get up to around 30 or so if you like. It is one of the few trips that you can actually get more dives in that a liveaboard. The club did a Bonaire Trip in 2023 and 2024 and we are likely to go back to Buddy Dive Resort due to the ease of the diving operations there adn the fact that they love us at this point. If you are a Tech Diver, there are options here. We can choose to go during Tek Week if there are Tech divers that are interested. More info in the meeting.

Grenada - Great for Tech Divers, Recreational Divers, and Non-Divers. Grenada is known for its many wrecks, including one of the few sunk cruise ships within recreational limits. The dive shop, Aquanauts, is willing to tailor our dive plans to the desires of the club, more than any other dive operation I have worked with. Such as, when diving the cruise ship, Bianca C, Advanced divers can dive the upper decks, technical divers can dive the lower decks, and non-advanced divers can dive a shallower reef within swimming distance. We have also planned dives on the far side of the island. The dive shop is located in a beautiful resort and there are a lot of non-diving opportunities on the island, so this is a perfect trip for couples of families with non-divers. Grenada is not in the Hurricane Belt, so it is a safe bet during that time of the year.

Bay Islands Honduras: Utila/Roatan/Guanaja. This is generally an inexpensive location with its pros and cons for each island, which we can discuss.

Little Cayman – The club did the Little Cayman in 2022, and it was absolutely amazing with some of the healthiest reefs in the Caribbean. The resort is beautiful also. This island is another out of the way island, serviced by a Twin-Engine Otter. Diving will be primarily on Bloody Bay Wall, which starts at about 20 ft and then has a straight vertical drop of 1,000 and a secondary drop down to around 3,000 to 6,000 (depending on your source). We will also be able to dive the Wreck of the Captain Tibbits (weather permitting), which is the only Russian Warship sunk within recreational dive limits.

Puerto Rico – While it is not known as a prime scuba diving location, this is primarily because they don’t market it. We will talk this one through but there are several options for Puerto Rico, and we will probably move around the island to catch as many of them as possible. There is a wrecked B-29 that crashed into the sea off Aguadilla in 1946, and now sits in 130 ft. The Aguadilla area also offers several shore diving opportunities. Desecheo is a remote uninhabited island 12 miles off the coast of Rincon and as a park its reefs are virtually untouched by mankind. There is a wall called “the Black Wall” which is a 22-mile-long wall starting at about 60 ft in depth and going to about 1,500 ft at its deepest. This wall is off the town of La Parguera. Other options are the islands of Vieques and Culebra, which were bombing ranges and places where the military practiced beach landings, and there still are some abandoned tanks on some of the beaches.

If you can't make the meeting, catch me at a happy hour or email me at RockTheDiver@gmail.com