Scuba Destinations Perfect for the Beginner Diver

From the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, these 10 dive destinations offer ideal conditions for newly certified divers to develop confidence — and experience the wonders of the sea.

Draining a tank early and then sitting on the dive boat waiting for other divers to surface doesn’t need to be part of your dive-vacation experience. “In Cozumel, you don’t really have to swim — you just drift with the current,” says Jose Gomez, with the team at Scuba Du, the in-house dive center at Presidente Resort. This means new divers, who might be nervous, aren’t needlessly sucking down air. And because most dives are drift dives, boats follow their charges at a safe distance, so when each diver is done, he is right where he needs to be to end the dive.

“Typically, you’d have to travel to four or five destinations to get reefs at all depths, plus walls, drifts, blue holes, night dives and shark feeds, but in the Exumas, you get all of that within one week of diving,” says Beth Oliveira-Blizzard, part of the team of All Star Liveaboards, operator of the Aqua Cat vessel. Different experiences, from diving tongue-and-groove coral reefs to swimming around 30-foot-tall patch-coral formations, give divers a well-rounded ­experience, and an easy place to perfect navigation skills. Says Oliveira-Blizzard, “Navigation is about much more than just the compass — it’s about finding markers in any type of ­underwater terrain.”

Getting open-water certified means you can dive without a pro, but it’s common for new divers to feel nervous about leaving the instructor nest. Provo, aka the island of Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands, helps bridge that gap, in large part thanks to visibility averaging 100 feet. “It’s super clear, which is really good for new divers,” says Kate Yarwood, instructor with Dive Provo. “It’s easy for navigation purposes in particular.” Most dives follow the wall’s edge, with divers swimming one way until reaching half a tank, then they return. With water conditions averaging 100 feet of visibility, the boat — with a floating surface marker and a weight dangling beneath — becomes a can’t‑miss target.

This scuba-center-favorite destination is an ideal choice for divers who don’t want the pressure of diving among a boatload of more experienced divers. Anthony’s Key Resort, one of the more established resorts on island, operates up to 12 dive boats per day, grouping newer divers together. Diving with peers allows new divers to slow down and ask questions. Says Kevin Brewer, dive operations manager for the resort, “This also allows the divemaster to stay at a shallower depth with the whole group of new divers.”

On Little Cayman, the sheer drop-off that is Bloody Bay Wall starts in just 18 feet of water before plummeting to 6,000 feet. “It’s far less intimidating to start at a depth not much deeper than a swimming pool,” says Sue Belport, of Clearly Cayman Dive Resorts, parent company of Little Cayman Beach Resort. She adds, “You’ll still see all the marine life — the eagle rays, turtles and Nassau ­grouper — whether you’re at 30 feet or 90 feet.”

Diving is an intimate affair off Glover’s Reef Atoll, a spit of island 36 miles from the coast of Belize — and smack in the middle of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, second only to the Great Barrier Reef in size. For starters, Glover’s Reef Atoll is home to just one resort, Isla Marisol, and thus, in the water, divers see only their boat. Moreover, the shore is always within sight of divers at the surface, waiting to descend. Says property manager Eddy Usher, “That really brings an extra level of comfort for some folks.”

Ultimately, the goal of a new diver is to explore reefs with just a buddy, and Bonaire is ideal for those looking to strengthen their DIY technique. The island’s leeward coast is lined with shore dives on which diver pairs can stick to the shallows and monitor their dive time, air consumption and location. If that’s too much of a leap, warm up with a few dives on the house reef of a resort such as Buddy Dive. At Buddy’s Reef, angelfish, parrot­fish and ­butterflyfish flit about like butterflies in a coral garden. There’s always the chance you’ll find massive schools of fish such as the scad — being hunted by a tarpon — shown here.

Wreck ­die-hards the world over target the Florida Keys for the Spiegel, the Vandenberg and several other massive metal reefs. What newer divers might not know is that Key Largo is also home to a half dozen wrecks dating back to the early 1900s, most of which now rest in 25 feet of water and shallower. Two steamships, the Hannah M. Bell and the City of Washington, can be found in the shallows of Elbow Reef. Says Dan Dawson, owner of Horizon Divers, “Most of the really old ones are really shallow.”

Dive operators on Oahu want the underwater experience to be as hassle-free as possible. Take Dive Oahu, a scuba center with three locations on island. They pick up guests from hotels and provide all gear. Then there are the sites themselves. Says Shelly Rofrits, instructor with Dive Oahu, “Our boat trips are short — 15 minutes or less — so you can be on beautiful reefs or even wrecks quickly.” Easy indeed.

Easy entries and scads of nearshore marine life rank Maui as one of the top shore-diving destinations within easy reach of mainlanders — and those 30 sites are open to all divers, not just those with an advanced certification. Top picks include Makena Landing for likely encounters with eagle rays and turtles, and Five Caves for nooks filled with eels, nudibranchs and a host of other macro life. Nearby Lanai also offers easy diving, depending on conditions, at famous sites such as First Cathedral and Second Cathedral. “On the boat ride to Lanai, we see dolphins almost every day — ­spinner, bottlenose and spotted all call Maui and Lanai home,” says Steve Juarez, owner of Dive Maui/Hawaiian Rafting Adventures.