The Five Best Destinations to Complete Your Scuba Diving Checkout Dives

Three-quarters of Earth’s surface is H₂O, so it’s a pretty good bet that you can spin the globe and find a body of water that can be explored by scuba divers.

The best part about these five popular dive destinations — Ambergris Caye, Belize; Nassau, Bahamas; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Key Largo, Florida Keys; and Kona, Hawaii — is that in addition to their bathtub-like ocean conditions and excellent dive infrastructure, you’ll find reefs that are packed with memorable marine life, such as sea turtles, stingrays, corals and dolphins. Your scuba instructor can explain how a universal referral works.

In the meantime, here’s a look at what makes these five places ideal for your open-water checkout dives.

You can choose to make your open-water checkout dives in Ambergris Caye, Belize’s largest island. But you can also opt to take the entire course in this laid-back Caribbean destination, especially if there isn’t a dive shop located anywhere near your hometown. Ambergris Caye is a 15-minute flight from Belize City, home to the country’s major airport. “We have courses starting every day,” says Karen Waight Canul, co-owner of Ambergris Divers. Classes with Ambergris Divers are typically one-on-one between student and instructor, although class sizes top out at five students per group. Confined-water and open-water dives are conducted in sandy areas within Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Divers flock to Hol Chan’s shallow waters to see the prolific marine life; more than 160 species of fish and 40 species of coral have been recorded here. Says Waight Canul, “From the get-go, our students are diving in a marine park full of marine life — it takes the nervousness out of the first dive experience.”

With flight times from New York City averaging three hours, Nassau, the capital city on the Bahamian island of New Providence, is perhaps the easiest Caribbean destination for getting open-water certified in a weekend. And if a weekend is all you have to knock it out, know that weather will likely not be an issue. Unlike other Caribbean islands, where dive sites are typically found only on the leeward, or out-of-the-wind, side, New Providence has a handful of options. Says Stuart Cove, owner of Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas, “We dive three sides of the island — north, west and south. Depending on where the wind comes from, we always have a calm side.” On whichever side is calmest, there is inevitably a wall-dive option because the wall encircles the island, and starts, on average, 40 feet down. This means that even divers working toward their first C-card can still experience this edge of excitement. In addition to the wall, Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas visits 20 wrecks in depths 40 feet or shallower. In one weekend, new divers get a taste of wall and wreck diving — and, most likely, also diving with sharks; the population of Caribbean reef sharks is healthy in the Bahamas. Granted, says Cove, “We save the sites with the sharks for the second day.”

Sixty feet or shallower is the PADI standard depth for open water certification dives — and while nearly every destination can offer this depth, few offer it along with destination-worthy reefs. Grand Cayman does. Before divers reach the wall 75 feet down, they’ll swim for less than five minutes to find the fringing reef, 100 yards from shore at a depth between 35 and 50 feet. The best part, says Keith Sahm, general manager of the dive resort Sunset House, is that “the fringing reef goes pretty much all around Grand Cayman.” Which means the 240 dive sites spread across all sides of the island are available to divers just starting out. It goes without saying that divers are going to see far more than just sand. “I personally am blown away by the number of students who see something on their first dive that I have never seen on Grand Cayman — things like hammerheads and pairs of manta rays,” says Sahm, whose dive center certified 150 open water divers in 2017. Jokes Sahm, “That sure beats my first dive, in a quarry. I couldn’t even see the guy explaining stuff to me.”

If we could do it over, we’d all wish that our first time went without a hitch, instilling confidence in our abilities. While certified divers can’t redo that first open-water dip, those just entering the water can do it right the first time — in Key Largo, Florida. Hadriam Vega, general manager for the scuba center Ocean Divers, believes everyone should get certified in Key Largo, just an hour’s drive south of Miami. “In the conditions we have, it’s easy to get really good at achieving strong buoyancy — the reefs aren’t too deep, and there’s no current to fight.” Specifically, the majority of coral reefs within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary lie between a depth of 25 and 35 feet. And with no current, divers can hold a position, feeling how each inhalation and exhalation affects buoyancy. Plus, water temps, even in the middle of winter, don’t dip below the mid-70s, and in summer, they warm up to the mid-80s. Even though it’s not the Caribbean Sea, you will feel as if it is. “Divers are able to get pretty comfortable quickly,” says Vega. Moreover, Ocean Divers stacks the deck in favor of safety. Nearly every member of its staff, from the dive guides to the boat captains, is a scuba instructor. Says Vega, “Having so much support on the boat makes things easier and safer for everyone.”

It’s not just ideal in-water conditions that make a ­destination preferable as an open water certification destination. In our experience- and adventure-centric culture, even new divers want to exit the water with social-media-worthy shares, and in Kona, that means dolphins and Hawaiian green sea turtles. “We are diving in the same bay together,” says Teri Leicher, co-owner of Jack’s Diving Locker, of the dolphins, which are protected by the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act. “They are not shy of scuba divers, which makes seeing them quite a memorable experience.” Leicher estimates that four of five dive trips encounter dolphins on the surface, and about one in 10 groups see them underwater. Hawaiian green sea turtles enjoy protected status in the state since 1978. Because of this, you have a good chance of seeing them underwater. Says Leicher: “You’ll find them either sleeping under coral ledges, eating algae off the bottom, swimming along as they’re being cleaned by wrasse or making their way to the surface to take a breath.” Granted, even beachcombers see the animals by the dozens, soaking up sun, behavior that’s unique to Hawaii. Due to the lack of freshwater runoff, Kona’s ocean conditions are calm, warm and crystal clear most of the year. That means divers can focus not on weather, but on the animal encounters that serve for many as the inspiration to get certified in the first place.