saba nov. 2005

nnoska

Senior Insider
we went to saba as a day trip from sbh,took a private charter from sbh on windward express at 7:30 in the morning we showed up at the airport and left right away, the landing is fantastic, the runway i beleive 1200 ft is on a peninsula going sideways so if the pilot overshot the runway we would be in the ocean,not as bad as sbh but very cool!! we were greated by eddie taxi and driven from the airport to the other side of the island to go diving with dive deep saba, eddie gave us some history and a quick tour of the island, very nice small better roads than sbh,less people fewer cars only 1600 people and 350 of them are medical students at the college, very green and mountainous, wild ferns, fruit trees, bananas, etc.me and my daughter went on the first dive to the pinnacles(if you love to dive go here,130 ft dive to a ledge, sharks, sharks and great large fish,visibility fantastic) eddie took my wife and 3 sons to breakfast, came back from the 1st dive to pick up my 8 year old to do a shallow dive and had some light fare at dive deeps rest. In Two Deep great service had a blueberry muffin some coffee and we went back out(oh yeah before we left they asked us if we would like a special lunch of surf and turf for 19.95 i said hell yes and we left) 2nd dive very nice mature reef, turtles, sting rays big fish very nice, very nice dive company your gear on the boat ready, my son had a problem with his 2nd reg. and they fixed it at the shop,smallgroup no cattle boat, nice dive boat,came back had a great lunch then went on a hike up to mt. senery(saba is an old volcano) hiked up a great trail, beautiful look outs half way up is an eco lodge, about 10 cabins, small bar and rest. but all solar powered, they grow there own vegetables, installing wind power, ifyour into minimalistic very cool check it out, then we went back into town checked out a few shopps and eddie found us and took us back to the airport, the charter was on time and we left at 5:00pm, all in all saba is a great place to visit, the views the diving and the people are what makes it great, i definently could have stayed there for a longer period of time!!
 
Saba diving is truly superior to almost anything in the Caribbean....did you do the PInnacles????...its a great island...if it had a beach it would be perfect....
 
I've heard the diving in Saba is special. What about the restriction on not flying after diving? At what altitude did the plane fly? How high is the hike up the mountain.
 
there is no decompression time so long that it will stop you from flying back...they dont fly high at all...maybe 2 thousand feet if I had to guess....the hike up the mountain is a piece of cake....I dont know how high it is but not very would be my guess.....I've dove in most of the hot spots in my life....Coral Sea....Flower Gardens.....Cayman before it got raped and pilaged.....Belieze.. and Saba, particularly the Pinnacles, can stand up to them all...to do the Pinnacles all the way you may need to do a Nitrox dive.....there is more rare black coral there then perhaps anywhere else in the world....its a must dive if you enjoy diving...St Barts diving, for the most part, will put you to sleep... and the landing in Saba will make St Barts landing look like a walk in the park...LOL
 
I'll look into it. I'm not Nitrox certified so I would only be able to spend 8 minutes at the 130 foot ledge. I've been that deep on several other dives though - at the Blue Hole off Belize they asked you to chill at 30 feet to outgas while they entertained you with hammerhead sharks and chum. Not sure about flying that day. It might be better to spend some nights on Saba rather than do a day trip from St. Barts or St. Martin.
 
we flew between 1300 and 1500 ft and the mt serenity is 1850ft, we were down for 18min at the ledge and staged coming back up( longer to come back up) 2nd dive alot shallower around 65ft, i would definently stay longer next time!!
 
take a look at the sea saba website...they discuss in pretty much detail the concept of flying after diving in Saba...bottom line, no biggie.
Besides the time you spend outgassing post-dive, the aircraft doesn't get high enough to cause problems...
As far as the Pinnacles goes, half the fun is looking over the side where the water just goes downdowndown...and, you can do that @ 100 ft just as easily as you can @ 130.
Get the nitrox cert, tho...in the long run, makes life a tad less problematic.
 
Re: saba feb.2007

dive buddy called me this weekend and was jonsing for diving pretty bad after a 5 minute conversation we decided saba would be a good 5 day diversion so we booked airfare, cottage and dive shop together armed with laptops and credit cards, i new i would come back, life continues to be good!
 
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