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| Saba |  
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Description:
Saba is a 5-square mile island located 28 miles south of St. Maarten. Completely different than St. Maarten, Saba has only 1400 residents and is known for its conservation efforts. The Saba Marine Park is used as a model park to develop other marine parks around the world. Saba has no beaches. Instead there's fantastic rainforest hiking with small villages nestled in to the hillside. The island has charming small hotels, excellent restaurants and a wonderful trail network with trails ranging from rocky desert tide pools to lush rainforest. The dramatic coastline translates to excellent dramatic diving with walls and our famous "pinnacle" dives, underwater seamounts.
In 1987, a marine park was established with permanent moorings, regulations of use and maintenance and a strong conservation attitude. At that time there were still few divers visiting Saba. The result is controlled diver impact and undamaged reef life, a powerful appreciation by locals and divers together of this pristine environment.
So complimented by this tremendous effort, the Dutch navy donated a four person recompression chamber, now backed up by volunteers from all the dive shops. All dive operations abide by the rules of the park and benefit from their ongoing research and education. Weekly slide shows are given to entertain and inform divers of Saba's special marine life.
Saba's Marine Park has received several honors and remains the only park of its kind in the worlds to be completely self-sufficient in its operation.
The park is situated around the entire island and includes the waters and seabed from the highwater mark down to a depth of 200 feet, as well as offshore seamounts. A zoning system is applied to get the best possible compromise between different uses of the marine environment. | |
| Details: |
 Nearest commercial airport: Juancho E. Yrausquin airport |
| Average watertemp: Min 25 - Max 25 oCelcius. |
| Average visibility: 25 Horizontal metres |
| Bottom composition: Corals, Rocks |
| Dive conditions: Ocean/Sea |
| Seasonality: Diving on Saba is year round. The winter water temps can be as cool as 77F with summer temps reaching 83-84F. Saba enjoys good visibility year round--our visibility is normally only effected by natural plankton blooms or winter northerly swells. |
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Marinelife in the area:
| Species | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | | | Blacktip reef sharks |  | | | | | |  | | | | | |  | | Shark sightings at Saba's Pinnacles are more common than not. In the past few years, regular sightings of black tips and reef sharks are even being seen on Saba's shallower dives. Fish experts assure us this is the best proof of Saba's long-time conservation efforts showing more fish life, larger ... (More)
| | | Coastal fish & Reef Life | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Saba Marine Park has protected Saba Waters since the early 80's. Permanent moorings and widescale policing of the area assure divers of an abundance of marine life including a great variety of fish. A telltale siting of this work is that you can still regularly see large groupers, normally at ... (More)
| | | Coral Spawning |  | | | | | | | | |  | | | | | for more information regarding annual coral spawning, go to the Nature News page of www.seasaba.com
| | | Eagle rays | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Saba's has fewer sandy grassy areas than most destinations so that eagle ray sightings are not common. Most sightings of eagle rays occur on our Windwardside but some have been seen in Ladder Bay and at our pinnacle sights.
| | | Hawksbill turtles | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | If you come to Saba for a week, you can almost be guaranteed of several hawsksbill turtle sightings. What makes this all the more interesting is that Saba has no beaches so the turtles come from a minimum of 18 miles away to enjoy the safety and serenity of Saba :-)
| | | Manta rays | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Manta rays are still considered a rare sighting on Saba. Sometimes we will see a manta every other day for weeks and sometimes not for another 6 months. So, certainly not a guarantee but a possibility, and an awesome one when it happens!
| | | Moray eels | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A variety of eels can be seen on Saba. Spotted morays, garden eels (including the Giraffe Garden eel which is suppose to only be seen in Brazil!) are abundant with regular sitings of green morays, spotted snake eels, sharptail and goldspotted eels. A keen eye can sometimes find a reticulate, chain... (More)
| | | Pelagic fish | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Diving Saba's deep water pinncacle dives is where you can normally interact with pelagics. The safety stop is often times the icing on the cake of these world class dive sites. Schools of jacks, passing wahoo and dolphin fish (mahi mahi) are common. Occassional sightings of Permit, African Pompan... (More)
| | | Stingrays | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Southern stingrays are regularly seen in Saba's sandy areas. There is no feeding of fish allowed in the Saba Marine park yet regularl sightings of multiple rays is common.
| | Probability of encounter:  0%,  0 > 60%,  60 > 90%,  90 > 100%
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