Added by Steven Backerman from his trip to New Providence, The Bahamas in November 2017.
This was my first time to the Bahamas and the diving was spectacular. Visibility was between 80 and 200 feet on every dive, there’s an abundance of life and literally hundreds of dive sites from which to choose.
I dove with Stuart Cove’s in the southeast of the island for 3 days and then dove with Bahama Divers out of downtown Nassau for 3 days.
Stuart Cove’s is a big and busy operation with several boats going out mornings and afternoons. They also have the SNUBA and SUBs available for non-divers. Dives are fairly strictly timed to 35-45 minutes in order for the boats and shop to stay on their schedule. And, the staff seems to be too busy most of the time to be very friendly, but if you persist in communicating, you’ll find they all lighten up and interact more and also become a bit more generous on dive times.
Bahama Divers is quite the opposite of Stuart Cove’s. The staff are extremely friendly, the operation is fairly small and run quite efficiently, but you don’t feel at all like you’re in a cattle call. Bahama Divers is also on the opposite side of the island, which means you’ll visit a number of dive sites that you aren’t likely to visit from Stuart Cove’s. Both operations will take you to the Blue Hole, which, in my opinion, is a lot better than the Blue Hole off of Belize, as there’s quite a bit more life in and around the hole, but Bahama Divers is a lot closer, requiring a much shorter boat trip.
Also, with Bahama Divers, you get to visit Trinity Caves dive site, where you’ll find several aggressively friendly Spotted Moray Eels who enjoy interacting and showing off for the divers.
Both operations will do their best to make sure that you don’t have to visit the same dive sites during your stay, unless, of course, you want to.
As you’ll see from my photos, there’s simply a lot of life, from slugs to sharks, as well as beautiful reefs. The island sits at the edge of the Continental Shelf, so you’ll find plenty of beautiful walls.
As a word of warning, New Providence is pretty expensive as far as Caribbean destinations are concerned. I stayed in an AirBnB and there are plenty of hotels and resorts, from rustic and inexpensive to pretty high class, such as the Atlantis.
When I return to dive in the Bahamas, I will opt for a liveaboard in order to dive the other islands (which I’m told are spectacular), too, on a single trip.