Best Saba Island Snorkeling Tour: Honest Review of Sea Saba

All of my snorkeling blog posts will have my personal snorkel rating of each site. Please see the key below.

OVERALL SNORKEL RATING KEY

🤿 🤿 🤿 🤿 🤿   =   World-class snorkeling and worth traveling just for the snorkeling alone!

🤿 🤿 🤿 🤿   =   Incredible snorkeling and should be on your list of top things to do!

🤿 🤿 🤿   =   Decent snorkeling and worth the effort!

🤿 🤿   =   Worth consideration if you are running out of things to do!

🤿   =   Not worth it!

We spent three nights and four days on Saba. In addition to snorkeling, we were there to experience the island’s incredible hiking trails.

We snorkeled at Tent Reef, so my snorkel rating is specifically for this site.

But I’ve heard that Wells Bay/Torrens Point, Cove Bay, and Ladder Bay are also worth exploring (weather and sea conditions permitting).

If you’ve snorkeled at any of those spots, I’d love to hear about your experience. Please share in the comments below!

To reach Saba, you’ll first fly into St. Maarten in the Caribbean.

From there, it’s a thrilling 12-minute flight that lands on one of the shortest commercial runways in the world. This is an experience that’s worth the trip all on its own!

Alternatively, there’s a 90-minute ferry ride across seas that can get pretty rough.

We’ll pass. Take the plane!

Shore access is limited, so you’re going to need a boat to explore some of Saba’s healthy reefs.

Which tour operator to pick?

This will be an easy choice because as of right now, there is only one option … Sea Saba.

Rest assured though, Sea Saba is an awesome diving tour operator and has been around since 1985!

Sea Saba’s snorkeling tours are scheduled daily at 1 pm in the afternoon. The cost was $42 USD per person plus $5 USD per person for the taxi roundtrip. 

✔️   Very responsive to emails

✔️   Easy taxi transfer from hotel for a nominal fee

✔️   Safe, sturdy 38′ Aventura boat

✔️   Friendly dive instructors and staff who make sure you feel safe

✔️   Max of 10 people

There are only a handful of accommodations on this beautiful volcanic island. My husband and I chose to stay at Queen’s Garden Resort, which offered incredible panoramic views of the valley below.

Unfortunately, Queen’s Garden was sold and has gone downhill since. Hopefully, new owners will take over and restore it to its original charm.

Thankfully, there’s another great option called Juliana’s, which would make a wonderful base for both snorkeling and hiking adventures.

From our hotel, it was just a six-minute taxi ride to the harbor, followed by a five-minute boat ride to reach Tent Reed.

If you’re staying at Juliana’s, the drive takes about twelve minutes.

We were dropped off at Fort Bay Harbor and boarded one of Sea Saba’s dive boats.

The boat felt safe and stable, and even though it was shared with divers, the crew was very accommodating to us snorkelers.

The boat also had a spacious platform and a T-ladder at the back, which made getting in and out of the water easy. I always felt safe, and the staff was incredibly friendly and helpful throughout our experience.

Currently, there isn’t enough demand to justify a snorkeling-only tour, so snorkelers join the dive outings.

On our trip, there were four snorkelers (including us) and five divers. With a maximum of ten passengers, there was plenty of space to spread out and enjoy the ride.

There are quite a few dive sites around Saba, about 30 to be exact. We were taken to Tent Reef, which I’d consider a “deep snorkel” since the reef sits about 40 feet below the surface.

While shallow reefs are obviously better for snorkeling, the visibility was fairly good the day we went, and we still spotted some interesting marine life.

I cannot recall if they provide snorkeling equipment.

Since a lot of our vacations are planned around incredible snorkeling experiences, we invested in good gear a long time ago!

Here are my favorite snorkeling gear items I bring on all of our trips including my recommended masks and travel fins!

Ok, so here are all the fun sea creatures we saw on our snorkeling adventure!

I honestly lost track of how many turtles I saw. They were everywhere.

It instantly took me back to snorkeling in places like Francis Bay on St. John in the USVI, Tres Trapi in Aruba, and Salt Pier in Bonaire. Even after years of snorkeling around the world and seeing plenty of sea turtles, I still get a little thrill every time I spot one.

Usually, when you swim alongside them, they take off pretty quickly. But this time was different.

One particularly curious turtle actually turned around and swam toward me, almost like I was the one being observed. It felt like I was on his snorkeling tour, not the other way around, haha.

That’s never happened to me before, and it was absolutely incredible!

My husband and I have had some unforgettable close-up encounters with stingrays in places like the Sharks & Rays Sandbar in Moorea, the house reef at Le Meridien in the Maldives, and Anse Georgette in the Seychelles.

While this time we saw them from a distance, it was still such a treat to watch two stingrays gracefully glide along the ocean floor in search of food. If you look closely at the photo below, you can even spot the white underside of one of their pectoral fins.

I just love nurse sharks, often called the “puppy dogs of the sea.”

This was actually the fifth time I’ve seen a nurse shark.

The first was at Waterlemon Cay in St. John (USVI), then Shark Ray Alley in Belize (which absolutely deserves a spot on every snorkeler’s bucket list!), the third was in the Maldives at the Outrigger house reef, and the fourth time was at Komodo National Park in Indonesia.

Nurse sharks are usually harmless and mellow, spending their days resting under coral ledges or tucked along the reef.

While snorkeling at Tent Reef, I almost missed this one entirely. My husband, who has a great eye for spotting things underwater, pointed it out. The shark’s coloring blended in so well with the ocean floor, it was nearly invisible at first glance.

Into sharks? So are we.

One of our most intense and unforgettable experiences was cage diving with great white sharks in South Africa. It was absolutely exhilarating, but I was perfectly happy not seeing any of those guys while snorkeling in Saba!

For snorkelers, Rangiroa is another incredible shark destination. We had some amazing encounters (from a respectful distance!) while exploring Tiputa Pass.

We’ve also had great shark sightings in the Maldives (at both Outrigger and Le Meridien) and Moorea in French Polynesia.

As for Saba, we were told the most common sharks spotted around the island are nurse sharks, Caribbean reef sharks, and blacktips. Every now and then, someone gets lucky and sees a hammerhead.

We also came across a few black triggerfish swimming among large schools of silvery-white fish.

Black triggerfish have a distinct, blimp-like shape with white lines tracing along their fins—they’re easy to spot once you know what to look for.

Fortunately, they’re known to be the least aggressive of the triggerfish family.

Our first encounter with a triggerfish was at Reethi Faru Resort’s house reef in the Maldives, where we spotted a titan triggerfish

Thankfully, it was from a safe distance. Unlike their black triggerfish cousins, titans can be quite territorial and won’t hesitate to bite if they feel threatened.

Saba Island draws a certain kind of traveler … those seeking adventure and unspoiled nature over luxury resorts or beach lounging.

You won’t find all-inclusive hotels, sandy beaches, or large cruise ships here. Instead, what Saba offers is raw, rugged beauty both above and below the surface.

While the island is renowned for its world-class diving, I wouldn’t rank the snorkeling as top-tier based on the site we visited.

That said, it’s still absolutely worth exploring especially if you’re a turtle lover. We saw plenty! I highly recommend letting Sea Saba guide you through this unique and beautiful underwater landscape.

And if you are still in the planning phase, do not miss my 10-day activity-packed Saba + St. Martin itinerary!

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Have you experienced Saba as a snorkeler? What were your impressions? Any favorite sites?

Let me know in the comments below!