Sandals Montego Bay

★ 3 · John Topham · 2013-04-09

We stayed at Sandals Carlyle but part of the Sandals attraction is that you can use the facilities at the other Sandals resorts - and the dive centre was at the Montego Bay so I headed there most days. Diving was included in the free watersports, so I expected it to be busy. Fortunately, possibly because it was January so not peak season, there were not many people taking advantage of the free diving. Booking was at a kiosk on the beach, and a quick check of the kit showed it to be well used and a bit tatty. A quick note here - although kit is included, wetsuits are NOT ($10/dive), so take your own if you want the warmth. I don't feel the cold much so was happy in shorts and t-shirt. The dive boat was well organised and clean, but I imagine space would be at a premium during busy periods. Briefings were, well, brief, and the dives were all planned to be short and shallow. My longest dive was 41 minutes, and I always surfaced with more than 100 bar / 1500 psi - sometimes well more. One dive site had a nice wall with a cut-through with an arch but the guide kept everyone at the top. I was a bit fed up with the shallow follow-my-leader, one size fits all style of diving by then, so I signalled my intent and went down by myself to have a look. It was well worth it and as it was only at about 22 metres I couldn't understand why the guides didn't take the group there. There wasn't much sea life, and the corals were a bit battered. Highlights of the week were a few turtles, moray, lionfish and a nurse shark hiding under an overhang. Would I go back? Yes to the caribbean, but not to Jamaica.