Dominica! Diving

We discovered Dominica through a small but beautiful ad in Scuba Diving magazine. I just couldn't resist the lush green surrounding a waterfall and the profession of even more beauty in the sea. We did three 2-tank boat dives with Nature Island Dive in the southern town of Soufriere (photo above) - for you non-divers that means we dove 3 mornings, 2 times each.

When we arrived at Nature Island Dive, we were surprised and very pleased to learn that it would be just us with divemaster Tony for our first two mornings. Morning 3, we had a dive mate from California. Apparently the threat of hurricanes scares away most tourists in September.

All of our dives were in the Scotts Head Sourfriere Marine Reserve it was the most beautiful diving we've experienced to date. We don't have an underwater camera, so you'll have to use your imagination and click the links to the dive sites below.

Jacek dove 6 dive sites, I dove 4. On the last dive day I was still too exhausted from our Boiling Lake hike and opted to snorkel instead. A few of our dive sites included Coral Gardens, Danglebens Pinnacles, and Champagne Reef.

There is so much life in Scott's Head Bay that it was almost overwhelming. Our eyes darted everywhere, constantly trying to decide which spot was the most interesting - not an easy decision considering the diversity of corals, sponges, chrinoids, fish and invertebrates, with every color of the rainbow represented.

Some highlights included a seahorse, a nurse shark (our first shark sighting that was not part of a shark dive), several sea turtles including a huge turtle munching on sponges, spaghetti worms (hey, they might be lowly creatures, but they were a first for me), huge bristle worms, spotted snake eels, and so much more...way too much to list. During my snorkeling adventure chasing a school of baby reef squid, Jacek saw his first octopus! Jealous!