THE OCEAN IS FOR EVERYONE |
| BARBADOS DIVE SITES |
As a happily married
couple Janet and I agree about everything!
Okay, that definitely is a stretch,
but we certainly believe we would be bored at a Sandals resort after a few days
if we did nothing but laze about, trying to decide whether we are to get a
chaise lounge at one of the many available pools or the beach, or what adult
libation to order at the swim up bar, or where to eat that evening. The days would begin to blur.
This is not to diminish
the resplendent beauty of a Sandals resort, or the indulgent pampering one receives
as a guest. As an all-inclusive, couples only family of resorts located
throughout the Caribbean, we certainly enjoy vacationing at a Sandals, and with
free scuba diving offered at all the Sandals resorts, the cost of a vacation there
is worth the money.
Scuba diving at Sandals is a big draw for us. We don’t own any equipment, but we are PADI Open Water
certified.
(I started my
certification process while on my honeymoon in Antigua…another trophy wife
decision).
Open Water
certification is good enough to dive to 60 feet and see all the pretty fishes! That's what we love to do at Sandals and usually the experiences are beautiful and fun.
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| Trophy wives are ALWAYS elite |
ELITE?
On the last couple of trips
to Sandals though we ran into a new “tier” of diver called “elite”. These “advanced”
divers are automatically signed up for every dive. For us to get on a dive we need
to hike over to the dive shop and hope someone cancels or doesn’t show up and
you need to get there around 7:30 am.
In Curacao the dive shop
was ½ mile away. In Barbados, our most recent trip to a Sandals, the dive shop
is also on the extreme end of the other resort.
(There are two resorts
side-by-side in Barbados. Though as a guest of either resort one has full
access to all the pools, bars and restaurants, we were staying in the “other”
resort.) That’s a lot of walking in the morning!!
On past trips to a
Sandals resort we would mosey over to the dive shop after we settled in and sign
up for the next available dive, which usually would be the next day. We checked
in on a Monday and the dive shop personnel said our first available dive would
not be until SATURDAY!! That caused a lot of angst, and some complaining, and
made us doubt the whole Sandals experience. |
| Shipwreck at Carlisle Bay |
You see, there are
other resorts that are as beautiful, but cheaper because diving is an add-on
cost.
We enjoy our Sandals
vacations, but we really enjoy our scuba diving. We don’t want to dive every day,
but we felt slighted that we would have to wait nearly an entire week before getting
on a dive.
Fortunately, Sandals did
see the “error” of their scheduling conflict and put us on an afternoon dive that
Wednesday.
 |
downtime during
our downtime |
8 DAYS A WEEK
Too much of a good thing can become a chore. We don't want to dive every day, because again, the days would become blurry. Thankfully we still keep track of our dives in our dive books, which helps. But, because we don’t want
to dive every day during our vacation, this trip to Barbados we booked an 8-day
stay. We reasoned we could dive for a day or two and then take off a day to
explore the island or laze about quibbling over restaurant choices and then
dive some more on subsequent days. It was a good plan, a few days of diving, a few days of lounging, but because of the
snafu with the dive schedules we ended up going out for 5 days, with 4 days in a row of diving. We did take a day of exploring to break it up somewhat, (more on Barbados in a later entry), but by the end of our diving it had become a chore for me. One needs some downtime during their downtime.
Hopefully the Sandals
family will reconsider this elite status, which incidentally costs money to join, and
realize the ocean is for EVERYBODY!
Thanks for reading.
Love Janet and greg
© 2023 by Gregory Dunaj
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