Saba: Sea Saba Advanced Dive Center

Our posts about diving in Saba wouldn’t complete without a big shout out to Sea Saba – Advanced Dive Center! A terrific experience all around.

We spent 5 days diving with Sea Saba and went on 10 dives. You can read all about the dives here.  This post is dedicated to the shop and experience.

Sea Saba is an extremely well-run shop with a crew that’s passionate about diving and the environment, our kind of peeps for sure. Our experience was top notch from the minute we arrived on the island until we departed. Sea Saba takes valet diving to a new level. If you’d like them to, in addition to handling your diving, they’re more than happy to manage your hotel reservation and will recommend the best place for your tastes. We booked everything through them and we couldn’t have been happier with our cottage and location. We told them we wanted a quiet place with a kitchen and a porch with a great view in walking distance to town. We ended up in Juliana’s Mango Apartment which was absolutely perfect for us. More on that in another post.

The day we arrived there was a note in our cottage from Sea Saba to walk to town to check-in at the shop and get a brief on how the dive days are run. The shop was about a 5 minute walk from our cottage and very well stocked if you forgot anything (flip flops, shirts, long sleeves, even hiking boots). Check-in was a breeze.

The dive boats leave from the boat harbor which is about a 20 minute cab ride from Windwardside. Don’t let the ride get you down, every part is filled with gorgeous views and it’s a great way to catch up with your friends on the dive boat and hear about what everyone did the night before. While Saba is a small tropical island, it doesn’t run on island time and the cab comes each morning at 8:45 on the dot. On the way out of town it stops at the dive shop and whoever is tending the shop for the day comes out for a quick chat and takes everyone’s dinner reservations for the evening. Not sure what you feel like yet (it’s only 8:45am after all), no sweat, they stop there again on the way back.

The first day you’ll bring your gear with you in the taxi then it stays on the boat until your last day of diving (don’t worry, you don’t have to lug your wet gear back!). They have a fresh water hose on the boat to rinse your wetsuit and a rack with hangers. Ours were completely dry each morning which was good for me since I’m pretty much always cold. I actually bought a 5mm for this trip after being tired of freezing in my 3mm and I don’t regret it for a second!

Surface intervals are on the boat and it was windy while we were there. A windproof jacket will serve you well to keep warm before the first dive and for warming up between dives. There’s water and lemonade available on the boat with recyclable plastic cups. We always bring re-useable water bottles when we travel to reduce our impact. Small islands all struggle with how to handle trash so the less there is the better.

The dive briefs were thorough and always included a drawing of the site with the topography to expect & the planned depths.

Diving nitrox? There’s an analyzer on the boat and the crew analyzes your tanks for the day in front of you. I know every dive operation is supposed to have an analyzer on board but I’m sure we’ve all been to places that don’t. I know we have.

We did the two tank morning dive which left at 8:45 and got back to the hotel around 2pm. There was an afternoon dive too for those interested, but two was enough for us. By then we were ready to have lunch, take a nap and enjoy the sunset. After you finish your last day of diving your gear will be delivered to your hotel later in the afternoon.

We dove with Mike, Aaron & Vicky — thanks guys, we had a great time & will definitely be back!

Warm thoughts to all!