Mike and I recently returned from Guadeloupe. In Part 1, I covered general information about the island, transportation, getting there, and our accommodations. In Part 2, I covered some of the many fun things to do on the island. In Part 3, I went through a breakdown of the cost of our trip. And in Part 4, I’ll talk about the scuba diving, and the dive operator that we used. So without further ado, the final entry in the series on Guadeloupe scuba diving!
We dove with Les Heures Saines, a dive shop located on Basse Terre. Mike and I are both SDI trained divers, so we asked for a recommendation for a dive shop on Guadeloupe. The French SDI rep recommended Les Heures Saines, and we were happy with our experience with them. They ensured that we had English dive briefings on all of our dives. And after they monitored our diving closely on the first couple of dives, they gave us a briefing and let us dive essentially on our own, which was appreciated. Most of the other divers were French, and I have to say that the French have different diving habits from the Americans (at least the Americans that we dive with). For example, many of them had gear dangling from them, rather than attached firmly to their gear. And most used full foot fins, rather than separate fins and boots. And they have a policy that you cannot surface without a surface marker, no matter if you are right near your boat and no matter how low your air supply. But despite the differences in diving style and gear configuration, we still enjoyed out diving with Les Heures Saines.
With the exception of one dive on the wreck The Franjack, our other dives were all around Pigeon Island, in the Jacques Cousteau Underwater Reserve. The reef was very healthy, with lots of colorful corals and sponges. The barrel sponges in particular were the largest that we’d ever seen. And the fish were plentiful. We were pleased with the diving, and that we even saw a sea turtle (although it happened to be on one of the two days that I dove without a camera).
Anyway, here are pictures from Pigeon Island.
And here are pictures from diving the Franjack.
So what do you think? Would you want to dive Guadeloupe?