Scuba Diving in Barbados has a number of wrecks most notable in 120 ft or 40m of water sits the stavronikita (or stav for short) which was sunk in 1978 on purpose to form an artificial barrier reef.
Note : The east coast for most of the year cannot be dived as it becomes somewhat a surfers paradise due to the Atlantic swells.
There is an excellent mixture of diving in Barbados from patch reefs sandy areas to barrier reefs. This suits all abilities and of course this is a great place to try scuba diving with the PADI discover scuba diver tour or go for the certification course which is the first rung on the ladder (Open Water Scuba Diver PADI) and allows you to go fun diving in future for a fee of average 50USD in the Caribbean per dive..
Tip: Ask the shop about converting your Discover course to the open water ourse if you like it and save some money for ‘the Gap’.
Back to the "Stav" ! She is an advanced dive and you might like me want to dive it twice. Its less than a half mile from the shore and is undoubtedly the highlight of scubadiving in Barbados and indeed is a premiere world class dive site. It is safe to say that it is one of the premiere scuba diving sites in fact in the Caribbean. If you are a beginner or less sure or didn’t dive for a while fear not as there are shallow water wrecks that you may be lucky to dive as part of your Open water certification.
Step 1 : Choose from a dive shop based in Carlise bay area is our advice. Barbados blue is a great outfit and I recommend them. (We may just have done step one for you) You might like to consider ecodivers too. They came recommended to me (they let you have a long but still SAFE dive) and I wanted to try them out but it was a timing thing..
Step 2 : Find a resort that the dive shop will be able to do a free pickup from – so email the dive shops early or better still have a skype chat with them – or message them on this site. Or hell talk to me its what I love to do and why I created this website. I love putting people on the right track for their starting out in scuba. Its one of those things in life I wish I had discovered sooner.
Step 3 : Work out with the shop what you want to do based on your stay. Note that you should plan diving at the start of your holiday as flying after diving is a no no ! 18 hours is a safe time that you need between surfacing and taking off.
Step 4 : Ok after you have booked the big things like flight and resort then you might like to examine the potential for doing more diving courses depending on where you are in your dive carreer.
I think that’s the basic steps outlined for you – but check up on what you need to do to take your underwater photos EVEN BEGINNERS ! Yes you can finally get some amazing envy pics for facebook or is it braggbook ?
So for the dive sites I hope to get more info as I go and I may need your help with some of that. But the Carlisle Bay (in the South West) is good for beginners and is the main starting point. The west has numerous dive sites too and suits anyone staying around the west. Just to stay its not as lively as the South and many will see that as a benefit.
Please let us know how your Barbados Diving went by joining our Caribbean Diving community and then it becomes a hunt to slowly dive your way around. Its not a bad bad thing.