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Looking for an opinion you trust on the world’s best overall dive destination? Top big-animal encounters? Destinations with the healthiest reefs? Look no further — we’ve got the answers. During the past year, thousands of our readers and Web visitors filled out reports on destinations, which are the basis of our 18th-annual Top 100 Readers’ Choice awards. Here are the cream-of-the-crop destinations on the planet as chosen by the people who count most: our readers.
Getting the Results
Divers rated the quality of the dive experience in 15 categories ranging from health of the reef to their overall impression of the dive experience using a 1-to-5 scale (5 = excellent; 4 = very good; 3 = good; 2 = fair; and 1 = poor). A minimum number of responses is required for a destination to be included, and final scores represent the percentage of 4s and 5s awarded.
CARIBBEAN & ATLANTIC
Health of Marine Environment
1. Bonaire — The Bonaire National Marine Park has won numerous awards and honors. But the praise that speaks loudest is that it’s the example by which other marine parks around the world have been modeled. Bonaire’s reefs contain virtually every single macro critter from the Reef Fish: Caribbean ID book and the finned critters — which have enjoyed protected status since 1978 — get up close and personal. This is what happens when divers rule the world. It becomes a better place. — Ty Sawyer
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
2. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
3. Cayman Islands — www.scubadiving.com/caymanislands
Big Animals
1. Belize — Nothing gets the heart pumping faster than being in the water with the biggest fish in the sea. Every year off Gladden Spit, at the southern end of Lighthouse Reef, the 40-foot giants show up just when the snapper begin to spawn and fill the sea with a fertilized egg buffet. And whale sharks aren’t the only game in town. Off Ambergris Caye, your day isn’t complete until you’ve crossed paths with a few nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays and southern stingrays. For more teeth, head straight for the famed Blue Hole, where Caribbean reef sharks have decided that divers need escorts. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/belize
2. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
3. Bahamas — www.scubadiving.com/bahamas
Macro Life
1. Bonaire — Please forgive Bonaire if they brag a bit, but topping four categories in the Caribbean region is a pretty big deal. You’d expect the destination that gets top spot in the environmental category to fill every niche of the seascape, and the “Macro Capital of the Caribbean” delivers. Frogfish and seahorses head the list, but break out the magnifying glass to find the smaller invertebrates and juveniles that will fill up the pages of your logbook. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
2. Dominica — www.scubadiving.com/dominica
3. Cayman Islands — www.scubadiving.com/caymanislands
Wreck Diving
1. Aruba — Once you wade past the honeymooners, the casinos, the nonstop nightlife and the legions of professional windsurfers, you get to a watery graveyard — a place where ships come to sink. And not just sink, but tumble to the seafloor intact with great stories, relatively shallow and wrapped in the kind of warm water we all dream of when we sleep on a long winter’s night. The big gun is the world-class, 398-foot Antilla, a World War II wreck with a constant halo of snorkelers looking down wishing they could dive. A profusion of corals threatens to fully transform this wreck into reef. And the story repeats itself in the name of the Pedernales, the Debbie II, the California, the Jane Sea and more. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/aruba
2. Bermuda — www.scubadiving.com/bermuda
3. Bahamas — www.scubadiving.com/bahamas
Advanced Diving
1. Tobago — You come to Tobago to get caught up in the rush, not avoid it. The Guyana current sweeps nutrient-filled waters over reefs swarming with marine life, and crowded with force-fed giant sponges and corals. Here you don’t drift, you fly; and places come with names like Kamikaze Cut, Bookends and Black Jack Hole. Mantas love nibbling their way through the current-borne tidbits, as tarpon, spotted eagle rays and even hammerheads all come for the wild rides off Speyside, St. Giles Islands, the deep walls off Sisters and, of course, Flying Reef. You want peace and calm? Go to the beach. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/tobago
2. Saba — www.scubadiving.com/saba
3. Aruba and Cayman Islands (tie) — www.scubadiving.com/aruba ; www.scubadiving.com/caymanislands
Underwater Photography
1. Dominica — Photographers see the world differently. They talk and see in shadow, light, movement and color. They like to make their images “pop.” They search for critical moments, dramatic encounters, seascapes that evoke awe, and macro aliens that make you stop and wonder. Photographers don’t just dive; they dive to wrangle time and find the soul of the reef. And when an island has everything from a resident pod of sperm whales to color-packed vertical walls, macro wonders and reefs that bubble like champagne, underwater photographers speak in admiration of that place. In the Caribbean, that place is Dominica. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/dominica
2. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
3. Cayman Islands — www.scubadiving.com/caymanislands
Value for Your Dollar
1. Mexico — When you’re spending your hard-earned diving dollars, you want to go to dive destinations that don’t cost an arm and a fin. Mexico is the perfect place for divers looking to stretch their dollar in such renowned destinations as Cozumel, the cenotes of Riviera Maya, the reefs off Costa Maya and the Chinchorro Banks, and the big-animal playgrounds of the Revillagigedos and Sea of Cortez. Yes, there are a lot of reefs and wrecks in the waters that bathe our sultry neighbor to the south, as well as plenty of dive shops vying for your hard-earned cash, an excess of fiesta, cheap eats and tequila, and a sun that caresses your heart. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/mexico
2. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
3. Bay Islands — www.scubadiving.com/bayislands
Overall Rating of a Destination
1. Cayman Islands — A perennial winner in Scuba Diving’s Top 100, the Cayman Islands — Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman — combine to define the kind of diverse dive experience that divers have come to expect in the Caribbean. The superlatives here need no introduction: the renowned wall diving off Little Cayman’s Bloody Bay Wall, the only divable Russian warship — the Brac’s MV Captain Keith Tibbetts — the all-in-one trip around the reef of Stingray City, and the plethora of sites off the North Wall, East End and Seven-Mile Beach. There are currently more than 320 moored dive sites, with a total of 365 planned. If you want it all, you need look no further than the Cayman Islands. — TS
Go Now — www.scubadiving.com/caymanislands
2. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
3. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
Marine Life
1. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
2. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
3. Dominica — www.scubadiving.com/dominica
Visibility
1. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
2. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
3. Cayman Islands — www.scubadiving.com/cayman
Wall Diving
1. Cayman Islands — www.scubadiving.com/cayman
2. Mexico — www.scubadiving.com/mexico
3. Bay Islands — www.scubadiving.com/bayislands
Snorkeling
1. Puerto Rico — www.scubadiving.com/puertorico
2. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
3. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
Shore Diving
1. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
2. Cayman Islands — www.scubadiving.com/cayman
3. Curacao — www.scubadiving.com/curacao
Diving for Beginners
1. Curacao — www.scubadiving.com/curacao
2. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
3. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
Overall Rating of the Diving
1. Bonaire — www.scubadiving.com/bonaire
2. Cayman Islands — www.scubadiving.com/caymanislands
3. Turks and Caicos — www.scubadiving.com/turksandcaicos
