The best diving I found in the Caribbean/Leeward Islands was at tiny Saba, one of the Dutch Antilles, just below St. Marten's. It's a volcanic island with no beaches, and only a small, man-made harbor - so none of those floating skyscraper cruise ships. The locals, live in 4 small settlements on the island, including a medical school sponsored by the Dutch govt., which offers a hyperbaric medicine program, so there's a hyperbaric recompression chamber and very skilled docs within minutes of the dive boat dock area.
The only visitors are rock climbers and scuba divers. The island declared it's entire surrounding waters a marine preserve/park back in 1987. There are no reefs around it so lots of great pelagics, especially around the underwater sea mounts, which are veritable nurseries of all kinds of fish. With the exception of 2 liveaboard dive boats, which were grandfathered in, in 1987,and which only visit there a couple of times a year, the marine park is closed to all the non-local dive operators. Never had to share a dive site with any other boat. My first visit was on board one of the grandfathered vessels, the sailing trimaran, Cuan Law, out of Tortola. We were on a down island cruise through the Leeward Isles and stopped at St. Maarten's, Saba, St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Barth's, and then decided to skip St. Eustacia and drop anchor again at Saba, because it was such fantastic diving.
I returned to Saba 2 years later and spent a week diving - stayed at Scout's Place Hotel and dove with local operation, Saba Divers. We were the only Americans there - all the other guests/divers were from Europe. There is a 5 star hotel on the island, but for 1/3 the price you can stay at Scout's Place - perched high on the mountainside with balconied rooms, breath-taking views, a pool, good restaurant/bar and very fun Karoke nights. There's a rain forest at the top of the island with a lovely restaurant and an Ecolodge cluster of cabins. Saba island was the model for Skull Island in the first King Kong film (back in the 1930's). and the outdoor scenes for the film were made there.
I've dived a lot of places - Belize, Roatan, Montserrat, Cozumel, many islands in the BVI, Hawaii, Puget Sound, Bonaire, Antigua, Exuma/Bahamas - but if I had to pick just one island, it would be Saba. So check out the links below and consider it for your bucket list. Also check out the Cuan Law - pricey but still good value - nothing beats laying in a hammock on deck while the ship sails under moonlit skies.
http://www.sabadivers.com/english/about_us.htm
http://www.cuanlaw.com/
http://dirgadiver.wordpress.com/scuba-trips/a-trip-to-saba-junejuly-2012/
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