Marc's Public Blog - Diving

π 2026-04-25 01:01 in Diving

Going to St Kitts to dive with Explorer Ventures

I haven't actually dived in hte Carribeans that much, so I joined my friend Arturo for this liveaboard. Trip starts was in St Kitts, which we used the opportunity to visit for an hour or so while waiting for the boat to ready to let us board. The two islands are actually called St Christophers and Nevis, which somehow got shortened as St Kitts :)

Like all carribean diving, it's not really possible to get there from California without an undesirable red eye, or a layover and hotel somewhere on the east coast. That's what we did by spending the night in Newark:

Decent plane to St Kitts

Arturo and I arrived a bit before the boat was ready for us, so we dropped out luggage and went to visit the pretty small downtown St Kitts, which is really only meant as a few hours stop for cruiseships"

found the one church

the main 'downtown' is really just a few restaurants and bars

And then time to head to the boat:

first liveaboard I've been on without an indoor saloon, so I made do with the half outdoor one

My quick review on the boat:

food was good

so was staff

cabin was ok

nitrox at 34% which was nice

5 dives a day, but sadly the night dive was after dinner, which is not my favorite

Only one guide for up to 14 people was the biggest issue, I've never been in a boat with such a bad diver/guide ratio, especially as some dives had very bad visibility

Here is a map of our trip:

St Kitts Diving

St Kitts was reasonably good diving (better in Saba later), here are a few pictures:

cute puffers

a handful of reef sharks

Seahorse!

Night dives had decent life:

In between the dives in St Kitts, there was an optional stop for a few hour tour of another side of St Kitts: a Rum Store, botanical garden, and fort:

Last, was the pretty impressive fort:

mongoose

Saba Diving

After 2 days of diving around St Kitts, a stone's throw from where we boarded, the boat went to Saba, a nearby Dutch island. Diving was overall better there.

yeah, I can't see you :)

found a few scorpionfish

lots of lobsters, which apparently can live up to 100 years?

ray shadow :)

beautiful spotted snake eel

seahorse!

Fun to see the rays hunting with little fish following them to get scraps:

Friendly Saba Nurse Sharks

And the huge, and I do mean huge, hightlight, were a couple of dive sites where young nurse sharks, decided it was enjoyable for them to come to divers and be pet, literally like cats. I hope no one will be confused enough to say you shouldn't pet sharks, when those literally came to you for you to do it. They never got fed by humans, so it's not entirely sure why they've grown to like this, but they do.

They were curious and came to say hello:

And for one of those dives, one of the small nurse sharks, chose me to be pet for a whole 4mn:

folding its fins to use them as feet :)

Night dives were also good, even if their timing after dinner was not great:

slipper lobster

nurse sharks went hunting

The last (6th) day had a very early start with a single dive at 06:00 so that the boat to get to St Marteen and get fuel before everything shutdown at 13:00 for the holidays that day.:

After that the boat went to St Marteen:

St Marteen Arrival

The boat ended up in St Marteen, where we didn't do any diving, but is a convenient port to fly out of. Sadly the day we arrived was a holiday on the dutch side, so briefly went to check out the french side:

kind of funny that such a small island is split in 2 different countries

french bakery

and a lesser for than St Kitts

So long:

See more images for Explorer Ventures from St Kitts, through Saba, ending in St Marteen