Go Dive Club
Heron Town
Hosted by Winston
One boat. Six seats. That is the whole company.
Six divers, twelve dives, every meal and every transfer — on a wall that runs the length of the island and is eleven minutes from the dock.
From $220 per night, per person · everything included
Eleven minutes out of the harbour the engine drops and you go over the side, and there is twelve metres of white sand under you, and a line where it stops.
Past that line the ground is not there any more. The wall goes down further than anybody is going and the water is the actual colour people mean. You hold at twenty metres and you stop swimming, and the island moves past you at the speed of the current — barrel sponges the size of a bathtub, a black grouper parked in a cut, a turtle heading out into the blue on business of its own.
There are six of you on that wall, in a line, because there are six seats on the boat.
A bigger boat would make more money. Twenty-three years in, that has still not become an argument.
But a wall like that is one hour of a day, and the other twenty-three are what you actually remember. Therefore here is a whole one, from the chalk board at half six to the dominoes still going at nine.
The whole boat list fits on a slate the size of a book.
Six is not a marketing number here. It is how many seats there are.
Twelve metres to the lip. Past it, nothing under you at all.
Pineapple, water, and an hour of lying on the bow.
Eight metres, no current, and the light is doing everything.
Snapper, rice and peas, and a plate you did not choose.
Everything is shut. Everybody is horizontal. Join in.
Friday it is the whole street. Other nights it is just loud.
Eight sites, and the furthest is twenty-two minutes away.
Everything here is close, which sounds like a small thing. But it means the boat can turn around and go somewhere else when the wind changes, and Winston makes that call at five in the morning. Therefore the list below is eight options and not eight appointments.
You stop swimming at the lip and the island goes past you
Twelve metres of sand to the edge, then a vertical face into open water. The main event, and it runs almost every day.
Boat · 11 min · Advanced · 12–40 m
Four nurse sharks under a ledge, stacked like firewood
An undercut ledge on the south side where the nurse sharks sleep the day out. Three or four most days, occasionally seven.
Boat · 18 min · Open Water · 14–24 m
Seventy-minute dives and nobody has ever wanted to end one early
Shallow coral heads over white sand with tube sponges in purple and orange standing a metre off the reef. The second dive, most days.
Boat · 8 min · All levels · 6–14 m
Forty silver fish the length of your leg, hanging in a channel
A sand channel between two reef fingers where the tarpon hold. They do not move and they are considerably larger than photographs suggest.
Boat · 14 min · Open Water · 10–18 m
A short twin sunk on purpose in 1991, and it is still shiny
A twin-engine aircraft put down on the sand in sixteen metres. Small, intact, and startling from twenty metres away.
Boat · 9 min · Open Water · 8–16 m
The night dive, and it is fifty metres from the bar
The house site off the dock. Spiny lobster out in the open after dark, octopus hunting, and the shortest walk home on the island.
Shore · from the dock · All levels · 5–12 m
The fastest water on the island and the biggest schools
The south-west point where the current accelerates around the island. A fast drift along a broken wall with everything stacked into it.
Boat · 22 min · Advanced · 18–35 m
A working island freighter, upright, with her wheel still on
A sixty-metre inter-island freighter put down in 2004 and now completely grown over. Upright on the sand at twenty-eight metres.
Boat · 16 min · Advanced · 14–28 m
Cover for every diver, and the photographs from the water — handed to you at the end, not charged, not mentioned.
If anything goes wrong, that's on us.
per night, per person · All diving · Accommodation · All meals · Airport transfers · Dive insurance
Plus the ride from the airport — $60 per person, charged once for the trip, not per night.
Winston has run one boat with six seats on it since 2003 and has been advised to buy a bigger one by roughly everybody. He decides the sites at five in the morning standing on the dock looking at the flag, and he has never had to go looking for a diver. The boat is named after his mother and he will tell you why exactly once.
Owner and captain
Twenty-three years, one boat, six seats. Has been asked to add a seventh roughly once a month and has never done it.
The shack
Has cooked lunch for this boat since 2009. Will ask where you are from every day of your week and will mean it every time.
Divemaster
Winston’s nephew. Rigs six sets of kit the night before so nobody touches a tank in the morning.
Instructor
Runs the courses and the night dives. Knows which head the green moray is in and has never been wrong about it.
The course that changes how you watch other people in the water →
Four days of scenarios in the shallow garden and off the dock. Hard work, quite tiring, and the course every instructor says they wish they had done sooner.
Two wall dives a day adds up faster than people expect →
Theory in an afternoon, then fills included for the rest of your week. On a drift wall done twice a day it is worth doing on day one.
They close the road and the whole village cooks on it →
The north end of the road shuts at six on a Friday and does not reopen until midnight. Fish out of a fryer, a speaker, and everybody.
Built on this island in 1961 and still rigged the same way →
Out on a wooden island sloop for the last three hours of light. No engine unless the wind gives up, and it usually does not.
Twelve miles, one hill, and nobody on the road →
Bikes and a route across to the east coast, where the sea is wrong and the beaches are empty and there is exactly one place to eat.
Four metres of water, and you see everything from the surface →
Out on the same boat as the divers to the shallow garden, where the top of the reef is four metres down and the visibility is absurd.
Trolling the drop at five, and Miss Ellie cooks what you land →
Out at five with Winston’s cousin on the drop-off. Trolling, four lines, and whatever comes back goes to the shack for lunch.
Sewn on the island, and the boat has flown one since 2002 →
The boat’s own flag, sewn by hand in the village, in heavy cloth meant to be outside for years.
One number, six days of diving, and nothing waiting at the end of it. But most of the week happens on land, and on an island of four hundred people that is either the best part or the wrong holiday.
Heron Town is one road, a harbour and about four hundred people. There is no resort here and there is not going to be one. The dominoes game outside the shop is the evening entertainment and by Thursday somebody will have taught you the local rules.
What that means for you is that the week is not managed. There is no programme and there is no clipboard.
And nothing is left to you either. The taxi from the airstrip is Andre. Lunch is at Miss Ellie's because Winston told her six. Your kit is rigged on your seat every morning by somebody who was there before you woke up.
“Six people on the boat. By Wednesday it stopped being six strangers and I am still in a group chat with four of them.”
— Guest, November
“My kit was rigged on my seat every morning for six days and I never once saw anybody do it.”
— Guest, March
“I have dived Cozumel and Roatán and Bonaire. This wall is as good and there were four of us on it.”
— Guest, July
House
Three doors from the shop and the shutters are original →
A wooden island house painted the blue everything here is painted, three doors up from the shop, with a porch that faces the road because that is where everything happens.
Cabana
Sand starts where the step ends →
Six wooden cabanas in a row along the beach at the south end, with a step down onto the sand and nothing between you and the water. Fans rather than air conditioning, and the trade wind does most of it.
Apartment
You can see whether the boat has come back without getting up →
The top floor of the old harbour building, one minute from the dock, with a balcony you can see the whole bay from. A proper kitchen, a washing machine, and the only room on the island where you can watch the boat come in.
There is very little to do here that is not the sea. One road, one shop, two places to eat and a bike ride to the east coast. People who need variety in the evenings find this island short.
The boat goes out twice a day and it goes out at half seven, and there is no afternoon boat and no second departure for people who slept in. Miss a morning and you have missed the diving for that day. Winston has never changed this and is not going to.
And hurricane season is June to November, properly. Flights get moved, weeks get cut short, and while the money is protected the week is not. If your leave is fixed and unmovable, come between December and May.
So you know what this island is short of. Therefore the only thing left is when you come, how many days in the water, and which of the three roofs you want over you.
From $220 per night, per person
5 nights · 2 guests
40% deposit · $1,130 now · balance 30 days before you arrive
Confirmed within 24 hours · a person, not an email
Dates move. Cancel free. If anything goes wrong, that's on us.
The trip you didn't take. The year you said next year.
On the last night somebody will slam a domino down hard enough to make the table jump and everybody will laugh at you for flinching, and you will already be working out how to come back in March.
At the shop
The whole boat list fits on a slate the size of a book, and it is written in chalk because it changes. Six names. Yours is one of them and so are the five people you are going to know quite well by Friday.
There is coffee in a jug and there is a dog. The dog belongs to nobody and is at the shop every morning at half six and has been for years.
Winston writes the two sites up next to the names. He decided them at five, standing on the dock, looking at which way the flag was going.
Leaving the dock
Six is not a limit Winston advertises. It is how many seats are bolted to the boat, and he has been asked to add more roughly once a month for twenty-three years.
Your kit is already rigged on your seat because it was rigged last night. You get on, you sit down, and eleven minutes later you are over the wall.
On the ride out somebody always asks about the boat's name. It is his mother's. He will tell you the story once and never again, so pay attention the first time.
First dive
Twelve metres of white sand to the lip. Past it, nothing under you at all. The wall goes down past where anybody is going and the water is the colour people mean when they say blue.
You do not swim. The current runs north along the face at about a knot and you hold at twenty metres and let the island move past. Barrel sponges the size of a bathtub. Black grouper sitting in the cuts. Turtles crossing out into the blue for no reason anybody has explained.
Winston is below and slightly ahead and he does not look back much, because he can hear you. Six divers on one wall, in a line, moving at the speed of the water.
Surface interval
There is a cool box with pineapple in it and a second one with water, and that is the whole catering operation and nobody has ever complained about it.
The boat sits over the shallow reef with the engine off for a full hour. People lie on the bow. Somebody always gets in with a mask for twenty minutes and comes back up talking about something they saw at four metres.
Winston sits at the wheel and says very little. If you ask him a direct question about the reef you will get a long and completely unhurried answer and it will change how you dive the second one.
Second dive
Eight metres, no current, and after the wall it feels like a different ocean. Coral heads with sand between them, and the light coming down through eight metres of clear water does most of the work.
This is where the dive is long. Seventy minutes is normal. You will find a cleaning station with a queue at it, and a green moray that lives in the same head every year, and enough parrotfish noise that you can hear them eating the reef.
It is also where the photographs happen, because there is time and there is light and nobody is asking you to move on.
Back on land
Six tables under a roof with a sand floor, forty metres from where the boat ties up. There is no menu. There is whatever came in, rice and peas, plantain, and a hot sauce in a re-used bottle that you should treat with some caution.
Miss Ellie cooks it and she has been feeding Winston's divers since 2009. She will ask where you are from, then tell you about her daughter in Toronto, and this exchange will happen every single day of your week and you will start to look forward to it.
Everybody eats together. There is one long table and there are six of you plus whoever from the shop is around.
Afternoon
Nothing is open between two and four and there is no point pretending otherwise. The shop is shut. The shack is shut. The dog has moved to a different piece of shade.
There is a hammock on the porch of wherever you are sleeping and there is a good chance you will be in it. People arrive intending to use the afternoons for something and are usually cured of that by Wednesday.
At four the island comes back on. The shop opens, tanks get filled, and somebody starts a game of dominoes that will still be going at nine.
Evening
On a Friday they close the road at the north end and the whole village cooks on it. Every other night it is smaller and it is still louder than you expect.
Fish comes out of a fryer in paper. Somebody has a speaker. The dominoes table outside the shop runs the entire evening and the players slam the tiles down hard enough to make the table jump, which is not aggression, it is the correct way to do it.
Winston will be there. So will Miss Ellie's brother, who has views about the marine park boundary and will share them at length if you make eye contact.
12–40 m · Boat · 11 min · Advanced
The reef top is at twelve metres and it is flat white sand — until there is a line where it simply stops. Past that line the wall goes down further than anybody on this boat is going.
You hold at twenty and let the current take you north. Barrel sponges you could sit in. Deep cuts in the face with black grouper parked in them, motionless, watching. Hawksbills crossing out into the blue.
The drift does the work, but that also means the boat has to find you again. Therefore everybody carries a marker and everybody deploys it, and Winston has never once had to go looking.
14–24 m · Boat · 18 min · Open Water
Not a cave. An undercut running about fifteen metres along the base of the reef with two metres of headroom, and the nurse sharks use it to sleep the day out.
Three or four most days. Seven, once, in 2024, which is still spoken about. They lie on top of each other with their tails out and they do not care that you are there as long as nobody touches anything.
Southern stingrays work the sand flat in front of it and there is usually a remora or two loose in the water looking for something to attach to. It is fourteen metres to the sand and it is an easy dive, which is why it is the one Winston puts new divers on.
6–14 m · Boat · 8 min · All levels
Six to fourteen metres of coral heads with sand roads between them, and purple tube sponges standing a metre proud of the reef. After the wall this feels like somebody turned the lights on.
There is a cleaning station on the third head from the mooring with a queue at it most of the day. There is a green moray in the fifth head that has been there since at least 2019. And there are enough parrotfish that you can hear them working on the coral through your own bubbles.
Seventy minutes is a normal dive here. On a full tank and a calm day, people have gone past ninety and come up cross about it.
10–18 m · Boat · 14 min · Open Water
Two fingers of reef with a sand channel between them, and forty tarpon hanging in it facing the current. They are the length of your leg, they are the colour of a mirror, and they do not move for divers.
You can get inside the school. That is the thing about this site — they open a little, you go in, and they close behind you, and for about ninety seconds you are surrounded by silver on every side.
In summer the channel fills with silversides on top of that, and something comes through the middle of the whole arrangement and blows it apart. That happens twice a week and it is worth planning a dive around.
8–16 m · Boat · 9 min · Open Water
A twin-engine aircraft, cleaned and sunk on the sand in 1991, and the thing nobody tells you is how it looks from a distance: the shape is so wrong for the seabed that people stop swimming when it comes into view.
It is sixteen metres to the sand and the wings are at twelve. The fuselage is open at both ends and wide enough that a diver goes through it without touching anything, and there is a cloud of sergeant majors living in it permanently.
It is a small site and it is done in twenty-five minutes, so Winston runs it as the second half of a dive rather than the whole thing. You do the aeroplane, then the reef edge back to the mooring.
5–12 m · Shore · from the dock · All levels
Straight off the dock, twelve metres at the deepest, and about fifty metres from where the dominoes game is happening.
By day it is a pleasant shallow reef that nobody would fly for. After dark it is one of the better night dives in this part of the Caribbean. Spiny lobster come out from under the ledge and walk around in the open with their antennae up. Octopus hunt across the coral with the whole body flowing over the rock.
You can do this dive at nine, be out at ten, and be back at the table before the game finishes. Several people do it four nights running.
18–35 m · Boat · 22 min · Advanced
The water squeezes around the south-west point and speeds up, and everything that eats what the current carries lives in the thirty metres of reef where that happens.
Horse-eye jacks in a wall of them. Reef sharks working the edge of the school. Everything is fast and none of it is bothered by you, because you are moving at the same speed they are.
Thirty-five minutes and you have covered a kilometre of reef. But this is the strongest water here and it does not suit everybody. Therefore Winston runs it once a week, on the right tide, with people he has already dived with twice.
14–28 m · Boat · 16 min · Advanced
Sixty metres of island freighter, cleaned and put down in 2004, sitting upright on the sand with the deck at twenty metres and the bottom at twenty-eight.
Twenty years of growth have softened everything. The rails are furred over. The holds are open to daylight and there is a wall of silversides in the forward one that folds around you and reforms behind. Her wheel is still on the bridge and people photograph it every single week.
The holds are open and lit but a ceiling is a ceiling. Therefore anything past the daylight needs a torch, a buddy in sight and a reason, and Winston will happily tell you that you do not have one.
Fridays, from six
They put two barriers across the north end of the road at six and the fryers go on at half past. By eight there are two hundred people on a road that normally has a dog on it.
Snapper in paper, festival, conch fritters, and a rum punch that is made in a bucket and should be approached with respect. Somebody's speaker is doing the entire job of the evening.
You do not need a ticket and you do not need us to take you. This is on the page because it is genuinely the best night of the week and people who fly out on a Friday morning are always sorry.
Four thirty, most afternoons
She was built on the beach at the south end in 1961 and she is rigged exactly the way she was then. There is an engine and it is only for getting off the mooring.
Three hours out along the leeward coast with the sail up and the island going past on one side. You can steer if you ask. Most people ask.
There is a cool box and there is somebody who knows the whole history of this coast and will tell it to you unprompted. Bring something warm for the last half hour — it drops more than you would think once the sun is off the water.
Any day, bikes at the shop
Twelve miles across and back with one genuine hill in the middle of it. The bikes are at the shop and they are fine, which is the most that can be said for them.
The east coast is a different island. The wind is on it constantly, the sea is standing up rather than lying down, and the beaches are long, brown-sand and completely empty. Nobody swims over there.
There is one place to eat and it is a woman's front room with three tables in it and no sign. Ask at the shop for the name of the road. That is the only direction you will get and it is enough.
On the morning boat
The non-diving half of the couple goes out on the same boat, at the same time, and gets dropped over the shallow garden while everybody else is on the wall.
The reef top is at four metres and the water does not have anything in it. You will see turtles, you will see the cleaning station, and you will see the divers below you looking considerably less graceful than they think they do.
One of the crew stays in the water with you the whole time. This is not a case of being handed a mask and pointed at the sea.
Five in the morning, twice a week
Five in the morning off the dock with four lines out, running along the drop where the wall is. It is dark for the first forty minutes. Therefore nobody is ready when the whole thing goes orange at once.
Wahoo mostly, sometimes mahi, and it is fast and violent when it happens and slow for a long time when it does not. That is fishing and nobody on the boat will pretend otherwise.
What comes back goes straight to Miss Ellie and it is on the table at half one. If nothing comes back you eat snapper like everybody else and you take the abuse.
Starts Monday
Four days, and by the middle of day three you will be genuinely tired in a way that no other recreational course manages.
Scenarios happen in the shallow garden and off the dock and they happen without warning. Somebody goes missing on a dive you thought was a normal dive. Somebody who was fine ten seconds ago is not fine. You will get it wrong. Therefore you will get it right.
Winston teaches this himself and takes three students. He has been the person on the end of a real one twice in twenty-three years and he tells you about both, on the first morning, in detail.
Any afternoon
Three hours in the shade behind the shop and a test that is not designed to catch you out. Then you analyse your own cylinder every morning for the rest of the week, which is the actual point of the card.
On this island the maths is simple. The wall is a twenty to thirty metre dive and you are doing two a day for six days. Air puts a real ceiling on the second one and thirty-two percent moves it.
Do it on the first afternoon rather than the fourth. Everybody who does it on the fourth says the same thing.
Behind the counter
Two colours and a heron, sewn rather than printed, by a woman at the south end who makes them four at a time on a machine older than the shop.
The boat has flown one since 2002 and Winston is on his ninth, because the wind on the crossing takes them apart eventually. That is roughly the honest lifespan and nobody is going to pretend otherwise.
People fly them off balconies in places with no sea at all. There are photographs of them behind the counter from eleven countries.
House · 46 m²
Three doors from the shop and the shutters are original
A wooden island house painted the blue everything here is painted, three doors up from the shop, with a porch that faces the road because that is where everything happens.
Cabana · 26 m²
Sand starts where the step ends
Six wooden cabanas in a row along the beach at the south end, with a step down onto the sand and nothing between you and the water. Fans rather than air conditioning, and the trade wind does most of it.
Apartment · 62 m²
You can see whether the boat has come back without getting up
The top floor of the old harbour building, one minute from the dock, with a balcony you can see the whole bay from. A proper kitchen, a washing machine, and the only room on the island where you can watch the boat come in.
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