The scuba diving circuit in the Caribbean has long been a rarefied one, with a small group of destinations like Bonaire and Cozumel drawing the world’s top divers and enthusiasts. 

Now a new scuba diving player has emerged: Antigua. 

The hottest diving destination in the Caribbean is Antigua, home to world-class dive sites across the island, particularly on its popular southern coast, and the added benefit of being largely undiscovered by much of the scuba diving community. 

And the epicenter of this burgeoning dive destination is on the southeastern coast of the island at the island’s St James’s Club and Villas Resort. 

It’s called Mamora Bay Divers, the on-site dive operation at the property, which has called St James’ Club home since 2011. 

Mamora Bay, the island’s leading dive outfit, is led by dive master and instructor Linda Swann, who has more than 15,000 dives under her belt in destinations from the Caribbean to the Red Sea. 

It means scuba divers have a new adventure to try in the Caribbean, a new way to experience some of the most beautiful. pristine reefs in the wider Caribbean – ones without the high-volume traffic of legacy diving destinations. 

And Antigua’s got all of the elements in place: beautiful, healthy reefs; a diverse undersea ecosystem; copious ledges, swim-throughs and underwater chimneys and warm water coupled with great visibility (with the latter typically ranging from 40 to 130 feet). 

And if you dive between January and April, you can even hear the sounds of humpback whales. 

And if you’re a novice, this is the right place, with Mamora’s Bay PADI-based instruction courses from the very entry level to dive master training. 

And if you’re at the St James’s Club, you can simply meander down the path from your room, hope on the dive boat and take off, in a short time exploring legendary Antigua sites like JC Canon, Stoney Cove and Eugene’s Arena. 

And it’s yet another feather in the cap of a destination that is one of the Caribbean’s buzziest destinations — with the surging arrival numbers to prove it. 

For more, visit St James’s Club and Villas. 

See more in the latest CJ Video.

— CJ