Dive Travel In The Bahamas – General Travel Information
For the first dive travel article and video here, I’ll cover the Bahamas since these islands have been one of the most popular destinations in the Caribbean. In general, the best scuba diving in the Caribbean will be at the more remote, less developed and less touristy islands. Although the Bahamas are a group of islands which are quite developed, touristy and commercial but believe it or not, there’s actually some really decent scuba diving there. I’ve been to the Bahamas a few times and dived off two different ports, Nassau and Freeport.
Nassau is the capital city of the Bahamas and is on the island of New Providence while Freeport is on Grand Bahama Island. Both of these ports are really easy to travel to with international airports serving both. Frequent flights from the USA and Canada fly to these airports.
Both places have a wide range of accommodations from cheaper simple rooms all the way up to expensive, ritzy resorts like the Atlantis in Paradise Island which is connected to Nassau. Both are also cruise ship ports so expect a lot of dining and shopping opportunities there for the cruise passengers during their days at port.
Here’s the video below which shows some Bahamas diving.
Scuba Diving Opportunities In The Bahamas
The dive sites in the Bahamas feature pretty healthy marine life featuring the usual Caribbean fish, lobsters and rays with good coral reefs. There are also some decent shipwrecks in the Bahamas to dive on as well but keep in mind that scuba diving here in general is at a slight premium in cost compared to cheaper islands in the Caribbean.
What really makes up for the extra cost in my opinion are some very special diving opportunities in the Bahamas particularly the shark and dolphin dives. Both Nassau and Freeport have land based dive operators that run dedicated shark dives where divers watch a divemaster feed a whole bunch of Caribbean reef sharks. I did a shark dive off Nassau and it was a very exciting dive.
The sharks get very close to you and from all directions. I even had one come up from behind me and graze the top of my head with its belly but at no time did I feel in danger. The sharks here are interested in whatever the divemaster is feeding them. After the divemaster runs out of food, the sharks disperse from the dive site.
The other very special dive is the dolphin dive offered only at Freeport. I did this dive twice. For this dive, we stop by at a dolphin sanctuary and pick up two dolphins then make our way to the open ocean. We arrive at a sandy bottom dive site about 50 feet deep and that is where we have very neat interactions with the dolphins.
We are told that the dolphins are not forced to do anything with us as once in open waters, they can go anyway they want. But during the two times I did this dive, the dolphins interacted with us both times and I think the incentive was the treats offered by the divemasters.
The Freeport dive operator I used was UNEXSO which runs both shark and dolphin dives. The dive operator in Nassau I used for the shark dive I did there is no longer in business but a very well established one called Stuart Cove’s runs shark dives there. Fortunately, I did get that shark dive on video which is on a separate post about shark dives.
There are also special dives with hammerhead sharks off Bimimi Island but only during the winter months and is quite expensive.
Usually, the more touristy islands in the Caribbean such as Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Barbados do not have the best diving in the region due to overfishing. But the Bahama Islands are exceptions as decent diving is still to be found even on the more touristy islands where Nassau and Freeport are located. Here are two more videos showing some nice scuba diving off Nassau.
Best Bahamas Scuba Diving
The best Bahamas scuba diving will be at the more remote dive sites which are more pristine. There will be more frequent opportunities to see not only the usual coral reef marine life but also more sharks and other larger animals as well. These top dive sites being too remote for the land based dive operators, are accessed by liveaboard boats. Most liveaboards are pricey but there is one called Blackbeard’s which is a budget one since six divers share each cabin. A few divers I know went on Blackbeard’s and they loved it so this is an option as long as you are willing to share with five other people in a cabin.
For all scuba diving in the Bahamas, expect the water temperatures to fluctuate depending on the time of year you choose to go down there. Although scuba diving is year round as expected with all of the Caribbean, the winter months will be colder in the water. Water temperatures can dip down to 72-75 degrees F or 22 degrees C over winter while the summer months will be toasty in the ocean at 85 degrees F or 30 degrees C.
