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This volcanic island in the southeastern Caribbean is an overstuffed treasure chest for divers, with a wealth of sites offering healthy reefs, bright colors and a myriad of macro life. With its volcanic structure and its location at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, Dominica offers divers walls, pinnacles, swim-through caves and a wide variety of marine life attracted by the nutrients the currents stir up. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more appealing destination.
Top 10 Dive Sites
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Don't Even Think About Going Home Until After This Dive |
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Worth the Airfare Alone |
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Like shrimp? If so, you'll find 10 different varieties here, in several cleaning stations. The site gets its name for a rock protrusion that looks like knuckles sticking out in the water. There are incredibly colorful elephant ear sponges and currents attracting pelagics.
Recommended minimum skill level: Beginner
It's on the northwest edge of a crater, and you'll find rocky outcroppings covered in sea rods, whips, or barrel and brown branching sponges. While schools of jacks, tuna and creole wrasse hang out in the blue, longsnout seahorses, colored red, brown, black, yellow or white, are on the reef, trying to camouflage themselves from predators.
Recommended minimum skill level: Intermediate
This site gets its name from the huge, jagged barrel sponges found here. It explodes with all colors of the rainbow, and hard and soft corals provide alluring backdrops for passing blue tang. Gentle currents often make this a drift dive, with the most vivid scenery between 60 and 80 feet. Peer into the barrel sponges to spy on crabs and watch for juvenile spotted drums and turtles.
Recommended minimum skill level: Beginner
A deep dive in a mixing bowl between Atlantic and Caribbean waters. There's a swim-through cave with soft corals and several lobster species. You'll enter the inside of a volcanic crater, which opens onto a breathtaking wall and drops down to 200 feet. You'll find monster barrel sponges and black coral, while the blue is packed with jacks and mackerel.
Recommended minimum skill level: Intermediate
A spur-and-groove reef dive that starts in 30 feet, starring southern stingrays. As many as a dozen can be seen on any dive. There's also a pinnacle that starts in 80 feet, bristling with big lobster, with octopus and flamingo tongues in the site's deeper reaches.
Recommended minimum skill level: Beginner
Here on the western edge of Soufriere Crater, in waters straddling the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, there's a spit of rock sticking out in the middle of nowhere. Schools of black margate (a grazing fish, which looks like a snapper) are plentiful. There's an inky blackness in the depths below you, as you leave the wall and venture out. Seas here can occasionally be rough.
Recommended minimum skill level: Intermediate
Though dives start in 25 feet, it's easy to drop beyond 100 before you know it. There's a plateau with sea rods and sea whips, then a drop-off down a wall. Following the reef outwardly, you'll see a nose-shaped area in 90 feet, where a variety of sponges live. This site teems with tiny whip coral, shrimp and turtles.
Recommended minimum skill level: Beginner
It's perhaps the north's most popular dive, starting in 15 feet, following a patch reef to a sandy shelf, then descending down on a wall to 90. The wall is less than 100 yards long and there's a profusion of life--rhinoids, sponges and schooling reef fish. The shelf is dominated by sea fans and lava tube caves filled with copper sweepers and spotted lobsters.
Recommended minimum skill level: Beginner
This volcanic wall starts in 15 feet, then dramatically plunges down a mile-and-a-half. Your entry point is Soufriere Pinnacles and your exit is near Witch's Point. The wall is covered in plate and whip corals and, looking straight down, it seems bottomless. Turtles and mantas occasionally cruise by.
Recommended minimum skill level: Beginner
It's one of the island's most picturesque sites, known for its profusion of colors. There are huge barrel sponges over three feet tall, crinoids, lots of overhangs and plenty of lobsters and octopus.
Recommended minimum skill level: Beginner
Pre-Dive Check
Country: Dominica.
Primary Languages: English, Creole.
Currency: Eastern Caribbean Dollar (EC). EC$1 is worth 37 cents U.S.; US$1 is worth EC$2.65.
Cultural Influences: Kalinago (Carib Indian), French, African, British.
Signature Dishes: Sancoche--salted codfish with vegetables and coconut milk sauce.
Signature Fishes: Frogfish, seahorses, spotted drums.
Topside Sporting Pastime: Cricket, soccer.
Topside Trinkets: Carib baskets made by the indigenous Kalinago people.
Travel Savvy Tip: Buy a $10 weekly site pass on the island to cover admission fees to many topside attractions.
Taking the Plunge
Getting There: With no direct or nonstop flights to Dominica (DOM) from North America, your best bets are flying Delta nonstop from Atlanta to Antigua (ANU), then hopping a connection on Liat Caribbean Airlines, or flying US Airways or American to San Juan (SJU), then connecting with American Eagle or Liat.
Weather: Average highs in the 80s and average lows in the 70s.
Dive Conditions: Water temps range from 78 to 84, with visibility averaging 80 feet.
Price Tag: It's about $1,000 to $1,200 per person for a seven-night package at a dive resort, with some meals included.
More Information: Visit the official Dominica Department of Tourism web site, dominica.dm, or scubadiving.com/travel/caribbeanatlantic/dominica.
