Dive Review of Starfleet Scuba/rental home in
Panama/Bocas del Toro (Caribbean)

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Starfleet Scuba/rental home, Sep, 2011, by David Ritchie, CA, US ( Sr. Reviewer 7 reports with 5 Helpful votes). Report 6297.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food	N/A
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We traveled via Panama City and spent two days there touring the locks, etc. That was worth the time on this three week trip. Regional air to Bocas charges excess baggage fees for over 30 lbs. We found a rental house on VRBO.com situated on the water on Isla Carenero, two minutes by water taxi from Bocas Town. Bocas Town is a backpackers haven with lots of hostels. Upscale hotels and resorts, some all-inclusive, are there too. Restaurant food is very good with lots of variety at half the cost of the US. Common US groceries are readily available. English is widely spoken and the currency is the US dollar. Chitres (sand flies) and mosquitoes abound. October is a dry month with the calmest seas. It is a tropical rain forest, so dry is a relative term. Plan on rain. Lots of runoff clouds the water and deposits lots of silt on the bottom. The bottom is at 60 feet or less. Dive sites are mostly within ten minutes of the dive shops. The two sites purported to be the best are full day trips that we were unable to dive because the trips are six diver minimum. We were unable to fill the boat and decided the $400 to $500 cost for the two of us was too much to bear. What we did dive was mediocre. We ended up diving six days of our three week stay. We dove off of covered pangas with outboards. Backroll or put on gear in the water. Exit by a reasonable ladder after handing up your gear. Tanks and BCs are loose on the boat bottom. Mouthpieces often are in the bilge water until you take care of it– not a good thing. No first aid kit, no oxygen, no radio, no toilet facilities. Any communication with shore is by cell phone. No camera bucket. Bring your own water and snacks. The divemasters, particularly Manuel, were excellent, moved slowly, and were good at finding something of interest on almost every dive. We saw lots of brittle stars and arrow crabs, some interesting coral formations, toadfish and scorpion fish (Liz is quite good at spotting them), some lobsters, and lots of lionfish. Lionfish arrived in 2009. Lionfish roundups are done regularly. See ISpearLionfish.org. Lionfish and subsistence fishing have taken a toll on the fish population. This is a big turtle nesting area, but that happens in July and we saw no turtles. Fifty minute bottom time is enforced. We dove the first day with Bocas Water Sports. They accept PayPal, which gets around foreign transaction fees on your credit card. We did the rest of our dives with Starfleet because they would pick us up and return us to our private dock. These and one other are PADI operations. There are two additional shops in Bocas Town. Starfleet offers three day open water courses and three day advanced courses which are popular with the backpack crowd. The beaches are beautiful, the rainforest flora and fauna are interesting, and the ambiance is neat. We got the diving that we expected based on other Undercurrent reports. We regret that we were unable to do the all day trips to what may have been better diving.
Websites	Starfleet Scuba rental home
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Fiji, Hawaii, Mexico West Coast, and Cozumel, California, many Caribbean islands, Nicaragua, Honduras
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, rainy, cloudy	Seas	calm, surge
Water Temp	82-83°F / 28-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	30-40 Ft/ 9-12 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	?
Enforced diving restrictions	max 50 minutes, although if 1st in/last out some dives over an hours.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Although not a photographer, there was no rinse tank on boat; camera was handled appropriately

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Dive Review of Starfleet Scuba/rental home in Panama/Bocas del Toro (Caribbean)

Starfleet Scuba/rental home, Sep, 2011,

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

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

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

Dive Review of Starfleet Scuba/rental home in
Panama/Bocas del Toro (Caribbean)