Diving in Dominica

On Friday May 3, we did 2 dives with our divemaster and guide Fabian. He had a deckhand (Ryan) on board to help with gear and tanks. We were joined by two other divers for this outing, David Prince (who shared some of the pics and video in this blog) and Craig.

Sadly, Lynda had an issue with her regulator that kept her from going on the second dive, but she thoroughly enjoyed the first dive.

On Saturday May 4, we did an afternoon dive and a night dive. I managed to fix Lynda's regulator, so she got to enjoy both dives. And she declared, without hesitation, that the night dive was her favorite dive ever. That's a high mark to hit! Overall, the diving here in Dominica is definitely some of our favorite.

Friday morning

Fabian picked us up (along with our gear) at Away To Me and took us to 2 bays just north of where we are moored in Portsmouth, where we swam amongst some of the healthiest, most beautiful coral we have seen in a very long time. Both Douglas Point and Tourcari Bay were great, but I think Toucari was my favorite.

We saw almost no signs of bleaching, with lots of fish, and the colors were incredibly vibrant. Visibility was great, at least 80' on both dives.

Both dives ranged from 25' at the start, going down to 65-75' before turning back to the boat.

The Douglas Point dive went down a gentle slope through patchy coral into progressively more dense coral, returning through what can only be described as a canyon of rock and coral. So incredibly magical!

In the video below, Fabian had shot a lionfish, and was trying to convince a big snapper to eat it. It just wasn't quite interested enough. Fabian ended up spearing it again and putting it in the bucket.

The Toucari Bay dive, which Lynda missed due to equipment issues, was along a sloped wall with huge expanses of coral above and below us. As we returned back up the wall, we got to swim through a tunnel in the rock, where lots of lobster were hiding. After, we went up above the tunnel and saw our air bubbles percolating up through the rock and coral.

Sadly, I didn't think to grab the GoPro from Lynda, so I have no pics or video of this dive. Thankfully, David Prince graciously sent footage from his camera!

The video below is from the tunnel we swam through:

Then we swam through some open caves (we did these on the night dive as well):

And then we swam over the tunnel and saw our bubbles:

We saw a small turtle, several eels, lobster, a big channel crab, snapper large and small, lots of little grouper, parrot fish, and tons of small reef fish that I can't even begin to identify. Everywhere we looked, there was something new and exciting to see.

We did see some lionfish on both dives, which we speared and processed. One of the local restaurants even has lionfish on the menu! The dive guides all bring spears and traps, and they harvest all of the ones that they find, doing their part to minimize the impact of these invasive fish on the native reef life. ❤

Friday afternoon

Fabian kindly dropped us back off at our boat, where Ryan helped us unload our gear, and we proceeded to clean everything.

I spent about an hour Friday afternoon tearing down and servicing Lynda's regulator. It turned out not to be that difficult to do, and I think it was just a bad o-ring inside the first stage unit. Everything cleaned, o-ring replaced, and the outer screw tightened appropriately, I tested it on our tanks multiple times. Not even a hint of air escaping.

At this point, we decided to go back out with Fabian on Saturday!

Saturday

I tested Lynda's regulator again an hour before Fabian showed up, just in case some gremlin messed with it overnight. Still good! And happy to report that she had no issues with it!

Once again, Fabian picked us up and Ryan helped to load our gear directly from Away To Me. Luxury door to door service! It was just Lynda and me this time - it's rare for a dive shop to take out a small group like this!

Our first dive was just around the corner, at the south end of Douglas Bay, at a site called "Five Fingers". The night dive was back at Toucari Bay - an excellent choice!

We had snorkeled here earlier in the week with our friends Mark and Elaine on SV Kaimana and thought it looked beautiful - this dive did not disappoint! The current was very strong, so we swam hard to the east at 25' of depth into the current, hugging the sea floor and hiding behind rocks as much as possible, then followed the slope down below 70' and let the current carry us back to the west, spearing any lionfish that we saw along the way.

We drifted through a forest of huge barrel sponges and large coral, seeing tons of fish (including one medium sized tarpon).

The night dive, just after sunset, was back at Toucari, giving Lynda a chance to see what she missed on Friday. There was no current here, so it was a super easy dive, just a lazy drift through the tall canyons of rock and coral.

We saw so many lobster, crabs, eels, along with fish that were sleeping and awake. Sadly, we didn't see any octopus.

The water was incredibly clear, we could see as far as our flashlights could illuminate. The lights brought out so much color.

And, the lights gave us an opportunity to see sea life that were swimming in the water column - tiny crabs, nearly translucent fish, small jellyfish, and even some fire worms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermodice_carunculata). Normally we work hard to avoid fire worms, so seeing them actively swimming towards us and our lights was a bit alarming! But nobody got stung.

We decided not to bring our spears with us, since dealing with them plus lights seemed more trouble than it was worth...and almost immediately saw half a dozen lionfish. Oh well...

We spent 45 minutes exploring and had nearly half a tank of air left, but it was getting late and we had a BBQ dinner to attend, so we called the dive done and boarded the boat.

Fabian delivered us back to Away To Me, Ryan helped unload our gear, and we got cleaned up just in time to enjoy a great meal with other cruisers in the bay. It was an exhausting couple of days, but it was probably our favorite experience in Dominica!

If you are in Dominica and want to experience some of the best diving in the Caribbean, we highly recommend reaching out to Fabian at +1 (767) 277-5673 (text, cell, and WhatsApp). He can provide a full set of gear for you, or just tanks if you bring your own gear. He will even pick you up at your boat in the mooring field if you want!

Dominica is a country that requires a local guide/divemaster in order to scuba dive (Grenada is another). You can snorkel on your own, but please hire a guide for scuba. And seriously, reach out to Fabian, you won't be disappointed!

If you aren't in Dominica, you really owe it to yourself to visit. The beauty, culture, and history of this island nation is absolutely worth it!

One final note of thanks to David Prince for capturing and sharing his video of the dives! He shared so many of them with me that I'm going to edit them into a longer video on YouTube and will create a separate blog post for them.

He has traveled extensively and has experienced a bunch of things that are on my bucket list, including diving with whale sharks!

He has a web site registered, but doesn't have any content created yet (https://David-prince.com). He says that we have inspired him to start uploading and documenting his travels, so check his site for updates in the future!