Our recent trip to Anguilla was a disapointment from a dive perspective. We tried going out with shoal bay divers, on the eastern end of the island. The guy running the shop appeared to have overdosed on testosterone, which effected his customer service and the safety of the dive. For example, he said you couldn't take anything on the boat that "didn't go down with you". Since we had a half hour interval at least between dives, suntan lotion would have been nice, and there was no reason for the stipulation.

He somehow blew air from a tank into his eye the night before we dove, so he was not our divemaster. The kid he sent us out with was not only a terrible dive master, but potentially dangerous. We were supposed to do a drift dive on The Steps, which is supposed to be one of the better dives. In addition to the dive not being pretty or having much fish life, we some how did a drift dive into a stiff current for almost the entire dive. At the end of the dive, the current was so bad, we were pretty much kicking in place. The second dive was like diving part of the moon - no reef, no fish life and again swimming into the current. I think he may have missed the dive.

We were ready to give up on diving, but tried Anguillan Divers a couple of days later, and had a much better experience. Two of the four dives we did with her were fairly good scenery wise. She is a good divemaster as well. It's a very small operation, and she doesn't dive everyday. There are no other dive operations on the island, no shore diving either.

So my advice, don't lug your equipment with you, go for the Villa's, beaches and food, and if you dive, go with Anguillan Divers.