Puerto Rico

I know it's a bit early for planning a trip next year, but my wife, kids
and I are going to Puerto Rico next February. I am in the middle of
getting certified as an Open Water diver in central NJ, and I have been
looking around for info on Diving in PR. I found some websites, but
they of course talk about how great their trips are and all that.

I was looking for info from a possibly unbiased audience here on r.s.l
The little that I have heard about diving there is that there isn't
much, and it's a hike to get to the places to do it.

Thanks for any info!
M@

"Matt Cushing" <matt@cushingonline.com> wrote in message
news:37c2epF56tbmuU1@individual.net...
>I know it's a bit early for planning a trip next year, but my wife, kids
>and I are going to Puerto Rico next February. I am in the middle of
>getting certified as an Open Water diver in central NJ, and I have been
>looking around for info on Diving in PR. I found some websites, but they
>of course talk about how great their trips are and all that.
>
> I was looking for info from a possibly unbiased audience here on r.s.l The
> little that I have heard about diving there is that there isn't much, and
> it's a hike to get to the places to do it.

Just for you, I'll go and check it out in March and report back here. I've
heard that the San Juan area sucks, but that the offshore islets (Vieques &
Culebra) and the south and east walls are good. Check back at the end of
March for more unbiased and up-to-date information.

Greg Mossman wrote:
>>I know it's a bit early for planning a trip next year, but my wife, kids
>>and I are going to Puerto Rico next February. I am in the middle of
>>getting certified as an Open Water diver in central NJ, and I have been
>>looking around for info on Diving in PR. I found some websites, but they
>>of course talk about how great their trips are and all that.
>>
>>I was looking for info from a possibly unbiased audience here on r.s.l The
>>little that I have heard about diving there is that there isn't much, and
>>it's a hike to get to the places to do it.
>
>
> Just for you, I'll go and check it out in March and report back here. I've
> heard that the San Juan area sucks, but that the offshore islets (Vieques &
> Culebra) and the south and east walls are good. Check back at the end of
> March for more unbiased and up-to-date information.

Wow, talk about dedication! How cool are you, going on vacation just to
check things out for me? Where do you stay while youa re there?

Why does the San Juan area suck, is it because it's so commercial, or
the positioning of the island? Any suggestions on who to dive with?

Thx,
M@

Matt Cushing <matt@cushingonline.com> pounded away at his keyboard
resulting in:
:I know it's a bit early for planning a trip next year, but my wife, kids
:and I are going to Puerto Rico next February. I am in the middle of
:getting certified as an Open Water diver in central NJ, and I have been
:looking around for info on Diving in PR. I found some websites, but
:they of course talk about how great their trips are and all that.

This is my trip report for Mona Island on the Nekton Rorqual ==>
http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/Trips/MonaIsland.htm

Follow the link for Nekton Cruises to see if and when they are going
back.

Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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Matt Cushing wrote:
>
> Why does the San Juan area suck, is it because it's so commercial, or

> the positioning of the island?

Its primarily two factors.

The first is that the island's location and topology produce rain in
the mountains, which becomes a lot of silt en route to the sea. The
second factor is the city and San Juan Bay, which is both a source of
pollution as well as a "bottle" that tends to concentrates it. The
many cruise ships that frequent San Juan don't help here.

The net result is pretty turbid and green water. I don't specifically
recall what my logbook said, but I'd say that the viz was less than
20ft.


-hh

I just got back from diving in the southwest corner of the island. It
was very good. Most of the time the visibility was 60-80 feet. The
water temperature was around 82 degrees. Diving was mostly walls at
80-120 feet. Second dives were 60-70 feet.

The town is very small. It's about 2:30 driving from San Juan. There
is no beach in the area, and little to do outside of diving or driving
to other areas to see the sites. Most of the time we did two dives a
day. A couple of times we did night dives, but all of this depends on
having enough divers to pay for the gas.

People say that it is not as good as other areas in the Caribbean, I'd
say it is very close to some areas--not as good as some others. I've
got to do more research. We saw a couple of nurse sharks, a hawk bill
turtle, octopus, ray and many barracuda. Cozumel is better. Some parts
of Belize are about the same. The other pluses are that the people are
very friendly and travel is very easy.

"Matt Cushing" <matt@cushingonline.com> wrote in message
news:37cb1hF5c420aU1@individual.net...

> Wow, talk about dedication! How cool are you, going on vacation just to
> check things out for me? Where do you stay while youa re there?

Very cool, thank you. It's not a problem but you can always buy me a beer
if you ever run into me. I'm staying mostly at the Westin, courtesy of
40,000 Starpoints, with a last night in Old San Juan. The Westin is located
25 miles from San Juan, hopefully far enough away from the city to avoid the
latter half of Hugh's complaints. The runoff is still a problem, but
apparently the trick is to simply take a boat out far enough to escape it.

The hotel, according to their website, offers the following:

"Two-Tank Dive Trip (For Certified Divers)
Our dive excursions to the Spanish Virgin Islands depart the marina each
morning for a day of diving adventure. These are two-tank dives on colorful
coral reefs teeming with yellowtail snapper, sergeant majors, parrotfish,
Nassau grouper, spotted eagle rays, sea turtles, moray eels, spiny lobster,
and much more. Depths at these locations range from about 10 to over 70
feet, providing breathtaking sights for everyone, from the casual snorkeler
to the most avid diver. We provide a full all-you-can-eat luncheon buffet;
unlimited refreshments, tanks, weights, and first-rate service aboard our
U.S. Coast Guard certified 38-foot Delta dive excursion boat."

I picked up a copy of Lonely Planet's Diving & Snorkeling Puerto Rico at a
clearance sale in a bookstore in Bangkok oddly enough. It's the 2000
edition, hopefully recent enough to be relevant. It looks like the diving
in that NE region of the island is done out of the Fajardo area, about 5-10
miles further south from the hotel. I quote: "The landscape west of
Fajardo is dominated by the mountains of the El Yunque rainforest. Each
year millions of gallons of freshwater runoff find their way down to the
coast, reducing underwater visibility near shore. Luckily the outer cays
are located just outside the greenish band of water near shore, so
visibility is improved. The topography underwater is largely fringing
reefs, patch reefs and spur-and-groove formations, and there are many good
snorkeling sites in this region."

So there you have it. The hotel's "Spanish Virgin Islands" are apparently
these outer cays just outside the green belt. So that's a start. As a last
resort, if I can't find anyone else to take us, we can always go out with
the hotel and presumably end up with decent diving, at least as compared
with San Juan. You're not certified yet and therefore probably wondering
why I don't want to use the services of the very hotel in which I'm staying.
The answer isn't cost, though you can bet that the service will be pricier
than independent local competitors. The answer is that hotel-affiliated
dive ops are going to respect the liability concerns of the hotels they
contract with and therefore restrict the independence of the divers they
take out. That's great for some divers, particular the new and
inexperienced, but at some point many no longer need the training wheels and
seek out dive ops that often function as no more than a conveyance for you,
your gear, and a couple tanks, and hopefully a cooler full of cold bottled
water.

> Why does the San Juan area suck, is it because it's so commercial, or the
> positioning of the island? Any suggestions on who to dive with?

Hugh answered that. As for who to dive with, you'll have to wait for my
report and even then it may not have the best answer since I can't try them
all. I do plan on getting out of the Fajardo area several days, hopefully
over to Vieques and/or Culebra islands if I can find a boat to take us
there, and definitely south to the Humacao region in the southeast which
looks to be no more than a hour or so drive from the hotel. The deep walls
are found off La Parguera, the southwest corner of the island, offshore from
the Guanica biosphere reserve. That, according to Yahoo, is exactly a 2.5
hour drive from my hotel which means I can do it in two, and then offgas
after the dives by roaming in the jungle looking for monkeys and tigers and
watching for parrots trying to crap on my head. I'm going to start the
process of figuring out who to dive with in each region, using a combination
of Google, the web, old Undercurrent "chapbooks", and some random selection.
Hopefully they'll be the right choices.

"Greg Mossman" <mossman@qnet.com> wrote:

> ...I'm staying mostly at the Westin... located
> 25 miles from San Juan, hopefully far enough away from the city to avoid the
> latter half of Hugh's complaints. The runoff is still a problem, but
> apparently the trick is to simply take a boat out far enough to escape it.


I see that the Westin Rio Mar Beach Golf Resort & Spa is around 25 miles
to the east. There will be localized river silt run-off from the El
Yunque rainforest, but you should be far enough away from San Juan.
FWIW, its generally worth a visit up to El Yunque if you've never seen a
rainforest before.

Good news is that you should be within easy striking distance to the NE
part of the island...Vieques, Fajardo, etc.



> ...The deep walls
> are found off La Parguera, the southwest corner of the island, offshore from
> the Guanica biosphere reserve. That, according to Yahoo, is exactly a 2.5
> hour drive from my hotel which means I can do it in two, and then offgas
> after the dives by roaming in the jungle looking for monkeys and tigers and
> watching for parrots trying to crap on my head.

I have coworkers from the Ponce area that I've asked about this kind of
idea in the past. The short answer is that the "2.5 hours" drive is
generally an optimistic number (apparently, road conditions in the
mountains?), and their recommendations have been to plan for a half day
to drive from San Juan to Ponce. My personal inclination would be to
make diving on the SW area of Puerto Rico a dedicated dive trip instead
of a daytrip from the North. Maybe things have changed, but you might
want to look further into this.


-hh

" H. Huntzinger" <{NOSPAM-rm_to_reply}rec-scuba2005@huntzinger.com> wrote in
message
news:{NOSPAM-rm_to_reply}rec-scuba2005-7053D5.08205316022005@news.giganews.com...
> "Greg Mossman" <mossman@qnet.com> wrote:
>
>> ...I'm staying mostly at the Westin... located
>> 25 miles from San Juan, hopefully far enough away from the city to avoid
>> the
>> latter half of Hugh's complaints. The runoff is still a problem, but
>> apparently the trick is to simply take a boat out far enough to escape
>> it.
>
>
> I see that the Westin Rio Mar Beach Golf Resort & Spa is around 25 miles
> to the east. There will be localized river silt run-off from the El
> Yunque rainforest, but you should be far enough away from San Juan.
> FWIW, its generally worth a visit up to El Yunque if you've never seen a
> rainforest before.

A visit to El Yunque is worth the effort. This is a cleaner part of the
island and it is enjoyable to walk through the park just to see the sights,
including people. If I remember correctly, a visit to the park and
traveling the coastal road around the island takes till late afternoon.
That includes one beach stop for swimming, eating lunch at a local
restaurant, and walking a few miles in the park.

Greg Mossman wrote:

> I'll definitely spend at least a couple days trekking around El Yunque. The
> mountain ridge drive into the interior also sounds appealing, but I'm not
> sure how high I'm willing to drive with my hair still wet.

Take a chance. Realistically, how soon can you make it above 1000' and how high do
the roads go? Even if it's a shore dive and you just throw your gear right in the
trunk it's still going to take a while to get out of the parking lot, and if it's
supposed to be a senic drive even you probably won't be averaging 80 mph, right?

Certain people used to post a lot about flying with their hair still wet (and I'm
assuming your use of the phrase means you're not completely serious) as if they had
magical powers, but if you're flying commercially it's almost impossible to be off
the ground less than 2 hours after getting out of the water even if you use a small
airport with a shore dive right out front. Even if you've just surfaced from a long
saturation dive the first hour or two at 1 ATA is pretty significant relative to an
ascent to 8000'.

I can't promise that you won't get bent if you drive to 3000' an hour after the dive,
but I will offer an unconditional guarantee that the car won't suffer an explosive
decompression that exposes you to less than 0.5 ATA. If it was safe to surface it
should be safe to drive as high as the roads around El Yunque go, about as soon as
you can get there.

> In any case, however the diving turns out, this is our trip to break in the
> mint-condition TRV-900 I picked up last month along with a barely-used
> Amphibico housing, before we take a "real" dive trip somewhere more notable.

You don't say anything about a light, but you do have one, right?


--
Steve

The above can be construed as personal opinion in the absence of a reasonable
belief that it was intended as a statement of fact.

If you want a reply to reach me, remove the SPAMTRAP from the address.