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Dive Review of Lumbadive PADI 5 Star in
Grenada/Carriacou

Lumbadive PADI 5 Star: "The Old Caribbean with Modern Amenities and Great Diving", Jul, 2019,

by Michael Marmesh , FL, US (Sr. Reviewer Sr. Reviewer 11 reports with 5 Helpful votes). Report 10997.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 5 stars Food N/A
Service and Attitude 5 stars Environmental Sensitivity 5 stars
Dive Operation 5 stars Shore Diving N/A
Snorkeling 4 stars
Value for $$ 5 stars
Beginners 4 stars
Advanced 4 stars
Comments For our honeymoon, my buddy and I went scuba diving in Grand Cayman at the Tortuga Club, 6 rooms then and 400 rooms now. For our anniversary, 43 years later, we wanted to find a taste of the old Caribbean but spoil ourselves. After researching, we contacted Lumbadive in Carriacou. Diane, one of the owners, made great arrangements for us. She set us up at Las Tortugas Villa overlooking beautiful Paradise Beach (lastortugasvilla.com) and also made our dive package and inter-island travel arrangements.

Lumbadive is a concierge dive operation. They carry your gear to the boat and set it up as well as switch tanks between dives. Entry is backroll and coming out of the water you remove your weights, BCD, and tank, and they lift them onto the boat for you. Most of the time we were the only divers on the boat, so we got to request the type of dive we wanted.

Our first 2 dives were drift dives, where we saw a school of over 100 juvenile barracuda (spet), lots of lobster, eels, octopuses, and an abundance of tropicals. The corals at every dive site, both soft and hard, were healthy, and we didn’t see any bleaching. We dove twice at Sisters Rocks, once inside and once outside, with a fantastic gorgonian forest on the south side. We also saw a train of approximately 9-10 Caribbean reef sharks on the outside of Sisters Rocks. We liked Tropical Hill, a squat pinnacle, so much that we dove it twice. The dive started at approximately 65 feet and we circled the pinnacle 3 times, checking out its occupants at each level.

One highlight was the purposely-sunk wreck of the Troll, a 124 ft. long island freighter sitting on the bottom at 115 ft. Richard, the other Lumbadive owner, prepared the wreck and sunk it in April, 2018. It is already getting nicely encrusted and there was a shark in the cargo hold.

Besides being a divemaster, Richard seems to be a jack-of-all-trades. He is building an underwater habitat in the bay off the beach from the dive shop. In the future, guests will be able to stay in it overnight. Ecologically minded, in an effort to decrease the use of plastic bottles, he collects used beer bottles, cleans them, fills them with water, and recaps them to provide water between dives on the boat. For those who don’t like this idea, water in plastic bottles is also available. Diane does her part for children on the island by teaching them to swim.

Las Tortugas Villa package comes with a rental car and caretaker. The villa has 2 air-conditioned bedrooms, an infinity pool, WiFi and catches great breezes. As far as food goes, we shopped at several local grocery stores and roadside stands to provision our kitchen. When dining out, we were advised to call ahead to different restaurants to see what they were serving that day since most of them didn’t have fixed menus. The villa comes with a phone for making local calls. We enjoyed the following restaurants: Hardwood Café, The Iguana, Slipway, the Gallery Café, The Lazy Turtle, and Callaloo at the Mermaid Hotel. As far as we know, none of the restaurants took credit cards. Most transactions are Eastern Caribbean (EC) or US dollars. In fact, the dive shop was the only place we knew that took credit cards and there was a 3% fee.

We had a wonderful, restful anniversary vacation with beautiful diving.
Websites Lumbadive PADI 5 Star   

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 501-1000 dives
Where else diving Bahamas, Caymans, Cocos, Palau, Belize, Roatan, Utila, Galapagos, Bonaire, Curacao, Costa Rica, FL Keys, Maui, Cuba, Dominica, Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos
Closest Airport Lauriston Getting There Fly to Maurice Bishop International Airport in Grenada. Take SVG island hopper flight or inter-island ferry to Carriacou.

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, windy Seas choppy
Water Temp 76-80°F / 24-27°C Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility 40-70 Ft/ 12-21 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile ?
Enforced diving restrictions Dives were all accompanied. Limits set by dive computers.
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks 1 or 2 Mantas None
Dolphins None Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 5 stars Tropical Fish 5 stars
Small Critters 5 stars Large Fish 3 stars
Large Pelagics 3 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 4 stars Boat Facilities 3 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities 4 stars
UW Photo Comments
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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