Our trip to Sint Maarten to go diving with Ocean Explorers started with a Travelzoo email. There was an offer to stay at the all-inclusive Sonesta Maho Beach Resort & Casino for $1000 for 5 days per couple. I researched diving in Sint Maarten and found lots of excellent reviews for Ocean Explorers. Next, I checked airfare. Finally, since it’s such a long flight, I opted to see if the Sonesta would allow us to buy two vouchers. It turned out, they were good with that.
Sint Maarten
If you’ve never heard of Sint Maarten, I’ll elaborate. Sint Maarten is a small island hosting a runway situated with the jets’ starting point aimed at Maho Beach. People like to line up at the top of the beach and experience the jets landing and taking off and blowing them around. Some people die from the impact, like what happened in 2017. Here’s a picture of how close the jets get to the beach.
Sint Maarten History
France owns part of the island and the Netherlands owns the other part. France got the greater share of the island. That’s another story, which you can read about in this article. Sint Maarten is a port for many cruise ships, especially those on their way to St Thomas. At one point while we were there, there were six cruise ships in port. This is when Sint Maarten locals get to work putting out chairs on the beach to try to entice cruisers to come to their establishments.
I’ve written another post about all the things there are to do in Sint Maarten, so you can read more about its history and things to do there in that post.
Sint Maarten Events
What I didn’t do before booking our dive trip was check to find out what was going on in Sint Maarten at the timeframe we were planning to go. Big mistake! It turns out the Heineken Regatta runs the first weekend of every March. There are a gazillion sailboats and yachts churning up the water. This results in poor diving conditions.
The day after we arrived, we decided to visit the dive center. We experienced the Regatta first-hand when we visited because the dive center is located across the channel where the sailboats are moored overnight. The drawbridge opens on the road over the channel to let the sailboats out. It takes approximately 20-30 minutes for all of them to cross. Had we not gone ahead of time, we would have been late to the dive the next morning.
Here are some videos of the dives we went on with Ocean Explorers. You can see how the Regatta impacted the water and visibility since it stirred up the kelp.