sub-tropic adventures

Great fun diving with Sub-Tropic Adventures and going on boat trips. I have also had some dive lessons with Anthony, who is always highly professional, calm and reassuring. We've also seen many whales and dolphins on boat trips and look forward to seeing whalesharks soon. Always a pleasure!

Whether you're under or on top of the water with Anthony, a day out on the ocean waves with Sub-Tropic Adventures will leave you with amazing memories. I've been lucky enough to scuba dive with circling devil rays, view humpback whales caring for their calves, enjoy dolphins speed alongside the boat, and snorkel with whale sharks as they feed. St Helena has amazing marine wildlife experiences just off the coast, and Sub-Tropic Adventures can introduce you to them all. Highly recommended.

I learned to dive with Anthony Thomas from Sub Tropic Adventures. You won't find a more knowledgeable, calm, friendly and professional instructor anywhere. He dealt with any issue that came up, above or below the water. He made the learning fun and informative with the emphasis on safety!! Since qualifying Anthony has led some exceptional dives on St Helena. What makes the dives special is the local knowledge and information he can provide to all the divers. Whether experienced or a novice, Anthony provides an individual experience that gives confidence to all.

St Helena is one of the coolest places on Earth and Anthony is one of the coolest people in St Helena. He is helpful, accommodating, knowledgeable and friendly. If you go to St Helena, you have to dive with Anthony and Sub-Tropic Scuba...

What a trip! Last Sunday Anthony "Nails" Thomas, took our family (7, 9 & 12 year olds) swimming with Whale Sharks. Within five minutes of leaving the open harbour we spotted the tell-tale sign of two fins in the air. A couple of minutes later we had spotted at least nine Whale Sharks (or bone sharks as the Saints, people from St Helena call them), all were feeding on the surface of the fishing grounds called Banks' in-between the Whale Sharks, small tuna darted in and out jumping out of water as large fish, possibly Wahoo (known locally as Barracuda), chase from below. We rounded the largest of the Whale Sharks some 18 meters in length and prepared to entry the water. Both Nails and Leroy the skipper are so calm with the all of us on board who are getting more and more excited, an element of fear mixed with such excitement. We put on our gear, and Nails gives us a briefing session about the Whales, keeping our distance, not making too much noise and not touching. He does tell us to just float around and they will come to us.The water even a mile off the coast is still 26 degrees and lovely and warm. We stay together as a group, the younger kids wearing life jackets and we wait without snor-kel and masks on. They appear slowly out of the gloom, you start to question if it is real and then it turns and heads right for our group, it passes by much closer than three meters, and I hear my eldest boy David give a scream behind me. One of the beady eyes of the Whale Shark turns its attention to us following David's scream but keeps on going past us and then with an every so slight flick of the tale it moves off as quickly as it came. PURE MAGIC! We turn around as two larger Whale Sharks move towards, we all stay together and the whale split apart and travel around the group. Over the next 30 minutes we have countless encounters with the sharks and finally we climb back onto the boat (The Seahorse) were everyone cannot believe what we have just experienced.The whole morning has been such an experience and Nails makes sure everyone has had such a great time, experiences like this are rare and with Sub-Tropic Adventures they become special. JUST MAGIC.

I just returned home from a cruise, which took us past St. Helena Island. Since I couldn't find any excursions to book on the cruise website, I contacted Anthony from Sub-Tropic Adventures after finding his contact details on the St. Helena Tourism website. He was very helpful with sending me information and booking / arranging the tour. He offers two island tours, but was willing to add attractions so I could see and do what I wanted to.Due to rough weather, we were unable to disembark and explore St. Helena as originally planned. Our captain did us a HUGE favour by deciding to stay overnight instead of just sailing off. He waiting to see how things looked the next morning. Luckily the weather calmed down and we were able to land in Jamestown early the next morning. And as soon as I climbed up the stairs onto the pier, I was welcome (by name) by Anthony, eventhough we have never met before. :-)Anthony took another couple from the ship on a dive trip that morning, so he left us in the capable hands of Patrick. Because of the bad weather the previous day, we had less time to explore St. Helena. Instead of about 7 hours, we only had around 4 hours. But Patrick still managed to show us all the most important sights - such as the Briars Pavilion (seen from above from the road out of town), the Heart-Shaped Waterfall, Napoleon's Tumb, Longwood House, Plantation House, St. Paul's Cathedral, Prince Andrew School, Sandy Bay Beach and Lot (from on top a hill further away), Millennium Forst and from there the building site of the new airport, and finally Jacob's Ladder before returning to Jamestown to visit the Museum. (I hope I didn't miss anything.) An acquaintance of my aunt and uncle, who were also on the cruise and joined the island tour, lives on St. Helena a few months a year. Patrick made the effort to take them past his house for a quick visit. Once in Jamestown, Patrick also made a lot of effort to find me St. Helena coffee, which is rumoured to be the best coffee in the world.All in all, the tour was wonderful and great value for money. Patrick ensured we saw as much as we could in the limited time available. I can only recommend it to anyone visiting St. Helena Island.And from what I've seen, St. Helena offers some great diving sites as well. I will definitely go back for at least 2 weeks once the airport has been built. I want to dive all 20 dive sites and do a complete, full island tour. And Sub-Tropic Adventures and Anthony will be who I'll contact!

Anthony (Nails) Thomas who runs Sub-Tropic Adventures could not be more helpful, he recently took a good friend of ours through the PADI course, she was very nervous but Nails looked after her and she is now qualified. Highly recommend using Nails for your PADI training, diving off St Helena is such a great experiance.

My husband was in St Helena working for 3 months, so we took the opportunity to learn to dive (PADI Open Water Diver). The tourist office gave us Anthony’s name from Sub-Tropic Adventures. We’re so glad he was recommended to us, as throughout the course, he’s been nothing but patient and helpful, with good humour along the way.Our schedule was a bit tricky due to work commitments, but Anthony happily fitted us in when we were available. He also didn’t mind when we needed to rest, or leave some skills for another day (as we couldn’t take it all in!)I know he was also teaching another group of students at the same time, but we did our sessions on our own, so we got 100% of his attention and teaching and never felt rushed to complete the course. We did it at our own pace.He was always happy to explain everything (over and over), even when I was having a bit of trouble figuring out the dive tables!Now we’ve passed our course, we’re planning on going out on some proper dives (with Sub-Tropic Adventures, of course!) so I’ll write a review of those experiences. I thought it would be useful though, to write a review based on doing the PADI course, separate to the diving excursions.