san andres isle

Has anyone been to this isle? If so, Can you tell me anything about diving and hotel? thanks Ken

San Andreas Island? Hey California hasn't fallen into the ocean yet!

Some years ago I was about to go to San Andres on a treasure hunt. At the last minute I had to drop out. But my friends went and loved it. Great diving, great people.

About a year ago I was one of the hosts for a group of San Andres environmentalists who were in the process of setting up Marine preserve areas. Their slide show images were terrific. Looked like Little Cayman UW.

Try www.sanandres.com.

Enjoy.

I've been there last winter. Diving is very good, not the best in the Caribbean but a lot of fish easy to approach. Algae seems to be a problem. All the diving is done on the west coast of this tiny island. Sites begins to look similar at the end of a two week stay but they are still interesting. Most of the time there is no or very little current. Once we had a very strong current at one site due to the tide making it impossible to take pictures.

We stayed at Decameron San Luis, a nice place for those who like to party. So it's a bit noisy and crowdy with small rooms but the beach is beautifull. If you make reservation you can eat at other hotels of the Decameron group. So we visited the other ones. The Decameron Marazul is more classy but there is no real beach. The Decameron Aquarium is built over the water and the view can't be better but humidity can be a problem. This hotel is also downtown but there is free shuttle (read a very old shool bus) that goes from one Decameron hotel to the other. Food is very good to excellent in all the hotels of this group.

All the diving operators are based downtown, so if you stay at the Marazul or the San Luis you will have to be pick up either by a truck or a cab to go downtown. Having a cab ride there is quite an experience it's amazing to see that those car are still running. We asked a cab driver where did they get their cars. The answer was "Mostly used cars from Haiti".

People are very friendly. If you decide to go there I would recommend diving with Karibik Diver. Werner is also renting apartments so he can do a nice package.

Diving San Andres is not expensive and it's interesting. If you're not having great expectations you may like it a lot.

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