Your online guide to Caribbean family vacations
from the authors of Caribbean with Kids.
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Your online guide to Caribbean family vacations from the authors of Caribbean with Kids. |
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Sea Trek Wonder what it would be like to walk on the moon? You might
never get closer than a walk on the ocean floor in an old-fashioned dive
helmet, an adventure you can do through Sea Trek on several islands. The
minimum age is eight, and there is a minimum weight of 80 pounds. Kids
with asthma can’t participate either due to the pressurized air that’s
used. We’ve done Sea Trek in Aruba with our youngest daughter
and it was great fun, an experience we all continue to talk about. How
does it work? You’ll take a short “course” on the helmet,
what to expect, signaling underwater, etc.; plan on about 20 minutes for
the briefing. Next, you’ll put on an optional wet suit (since you’ll be underwater for nearly half an hour, it can get a little cool, even in the Caribbean) and line up at the ladder to enter the water. One at a time, you’ll go down the ladder until the
water’s chin deep. When just your head is out of water, a high-tech
dive bell that weighs 70 pounds will be lowered onto your shoulders; don’t
worry about supporting the weight because you’ll lower yourself on
down the ladder as the helmet goes onto your head. From that point on,
the helmet’s just about weightless due to the water’s bouyancy. Slowly, you’ll step down the ladder with the help of scuba divers who will remain with you throughout your time underwater. At the foot of the ladder, you’ll find a rope outlining the walkway you’ll follow. Single file, behind the other “divers,” you’ll walk along this walkway as if in slow motion. The only sound is your own breathing, echoed inside your
helmet. The surface is never more than a signal away (one gesture and
the certified divers who are accompanying you will whisk you to the top.) What’s neat about the experience? You don’t have
to have any dive experience to do it; you don’t even have to know
how to swim. Anyone in your family who wears glasses can wear their glasses
as usual because everything (including your hair) remains dry under the
helmet. Best of all, the experience gives you the feeling of being just
another fish in the Caribbean Sea. Fish will come right up to you and
you’ll have a look at the sea in a way no one but a scuba diver has
the opportunity to do. At present time, you’ll find Sea Trek operations in Montego Bay, Jamaica (at Doctor’s Cave Beach), at St. Thomas’ Coral World, Aruba’s DePalm Island, and in the Turks and Caicos.
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