Dive Review of Scubaqua/Golden Rock Dive and Nature Resort in
St. Eustatius/Caribbean

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Scubaqua/Golden Rock Dive and Nature Resort: "Unknown Caribbean Gem", Nov, 2022, by Patrick Ritter, California, USA ( 2 reports). Report 12210.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude	N/A	Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Saint Eustatius? Never heard of it. Which is why I wanted to dive there. It’s a small Caribbean island, six miles long, about 45 miles south of Saint Martin. Known locally as Stacia, it is a municipality of the Netherlands. Everyone speaks English. The entire island is surrounded by a marine park, established in 1996, that includes two areas where fishing and anchoring isn’t permitted. As a result the marine ecosystem is refreshingly healthy, unlike a lot of the Caribbean. The park is managed by a non-profit and all the dive sites except one have mooring buoys. They allow only one boat per dive site so no crowding. It was a moot point anyway as my dive boat had only 1-3 other divers. You need to buy a yearly park pass ($30) or pay $6 per dive site. There are two dive operators. I used ScubaAqua. Exceptional service and excellent international staff from Great Britain, Netherlands, South Africa, and France. Perfect English, hospitable, and very fun. Nitrox and all gear available. Tank dives were $57 each. Full equipment rental was $50/day. From St. Martin you can take a ferry (1.5 hr) or a puddle jumper flight (30 minutes). The ferry doesn’t run every day so to accommodate our schedule we took the flight, an exhilarating arrival as it dropped steeply over a cliff down to the runway. (Not really dangerous, just exciting.) The 36 dive sites include: eel grass interspersed with outcrops; lava formation blocks and fingers, covered with marine life; sandy bottom with wrecks and wreck debris; reefs with mostly soft coral and sponge type habitat. Most of my dives were about 50-70 feet. There are a couple of deep wall dives (130 ft) which I didn’t do. Visibility was 40-70 feet. Very little current. Easy diving. The dive sites were 10-15 minutes away. Because it was a free port with no custom duties, in the late seventeen hundreds, Stacia became the busiest port in the world for a while, with 3,000 ships docking there per year (ten a day.) When storms hit there were a lot of wrecks. The wood is all gone but you can still see cannons, anchors, metal debris, old bottles, ballast bricks, etc. Reefs formed on the remains of the wrecks and the ballast bricks, as well as the lava. One of my dive guides had studied archaeology so he was really jazzed about the wreck sites. He took me to one spot and showed me a grappling hook imbedded in a piece of human femur. The bone was still visible. Ouch, tough way to go. There are also sites with more recent wrecks or sinkings, including an excellent tug boat wreck right out of Pirates of the Caribbean. We stayed at a brand new resort called the Golden Rock Dive Center and Resort. Pretty high end, with rooms around $300. Two pools, beautiful landscaped grounds, and good service. They provide free taxi service to and from anywhere on the island so we didn’t need a car. Which is good as the roads are narrow and muddy in places and occasionally blocked by goats. Also, the Golden Rock is over on one side of the island and isn’t walking distance to the small town. A less expensive option would be the Old Gin House, on the old waterfront and next door to the dive shop. The Golden Rock restaurant had a spectacular layout with views, although the food was good, but not great. If you want really great food, stop on the French side of St. Martin, as we did for a couple of days. Incredible French/Asian/Caribbean fusion food and magnificent beaches. On Stacia we did eat at the Old Gin House and the Barrel House, both of which were excellent. Snorkeling on Stacia isn’t great as there aren’t any shallow reefs. And there aren’t any beaches per se. The island is dominated by a former volcano, called the Quill. One day we hiked to the rim (about 1,800 feet) which afforded unique vegetation and amazing views. I saw octopuses, moray eels, small reef sharks, green and hawksbill turtles, angel, parrot, and butterfly fish, and a huge number of lobsters. The most interesting fish I saw was a Flying Gurnard, which looked like a small owl at first, then like a giant moth when it opened its amazing fins, and then, as it started swimming/flying away, it looked like a fish, crossed with a bird, crossed with a dragonfly. Bizarre and beautiful. I spent one dive hunting in the eel grass/sand for small blue glass beads, remnants of the slave days, but didn’t find any. They are the only souvenir you can take. Overall, the island had an untouched, old world, Caribbean vibe (the Golden Rock Resort not withstanding). The diving was way above average for the Caribbean. I would go back. Probably better to go soon before it gets discovered.
Websites	Scubaqua Golden Rock Dive and Nature Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Raja Ampat, Bonaire, Roatan, Great Barrier Reef, Andaman Sea, Sea of Cortez, Panama, Cozumel, Turks and Caicos, Virgin Islands, Aruba, Hawaii, California.
Closest Airport	St Eustatius	Getting There	Fly from Miami or Houstan to St Martin, then take ferry or short flight to St Eustatius.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	no currents
Water Temp	82-°F / 28-°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	40-70 Ft/ 12-21 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Scubaqua/Golden Rock Dive and Nature Resort in St. Eustatius/Caribbean

Scubaqua/Golden Rock Dive and Nature Resort: "Unknown Caribbean Gem", Nov, 2022,

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 Scubaqua/Golden Rock Dive and Nature Resort in
St. Eustatius/Caribbean