Scuba Diving

[UKskins]

Anyone else on here certified to dive?

 

I got my Open Water about 6 years ago - living in the UK means I only really get to dive when we go on vacation though - too cold to dive here (tried it once, never again!). Logged around 60 or so dives so far - Dived in Egypt, Turkey, Thailand mainly.

 

Anyone have any reccomendations for Dive spots I really should get to? Or have a diving bucket list?

[LadySkinsFan]

I worked with a guy and gal once who were avid divers and underwater photographers. He was from New Zealand and recommended that country for one.  This was quite a few years ago, and I can't remember all the places he went.

 

A lot of the reefs are dying because of pollution, so researching spot is good. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Im certified up to Rescue.  Dove in Guam, Saipan, Palau, Roatan, Mexico, amd Pensacola.  Palau spoiled me and should be on your bucket list.  Look up Blue Corner there.  Also the great Carrier Reef in Pensacola.  Especially if you like wreck/penetration dives.  There is a place in Guam called 11 mile reef (its 11 miles out) and you can see divers on the bottom at 130 ft.  Im hoping to dive in Dubai when I go there in a few months.

[TheGreatBuzz]

Me riding the big gun on a sunken warship in Palau.

[TheGreatBuzz]

Wife and I on a cave dive.

[Predicto]

I'm not an expert like GreatBuzz, but I've dove Barbados, Cozumel, Thailand, Antigua, all over Hawaii, and Monterey Kelp Forest.   

 

The best boat dive was Cozumel along the Santa Rosa wall.  The best shore dive was Mala Pier in Maui.  The most unique was night diving with Manta Rays off the Big Island of Hawaii.  

 

https://bigislanddivers.com/charters/kona-manta-ray-night-scuba-dive/

[redskinss]

I got certified 20 years ago. 

Probably had somewhere around 250 dives or so but haven't dove in close to 10 years. 

Don't have anybody to go with anymore but it was one of the things I used to love more than just about anything. 

All cold water dives for scallops and lobsters in new England. 

Man we used to come back with so much seafood on Saturdays. 

4 divers 3 dives apiece and on a good day we'd get 40 pounds of shucked scallops or a good 30 or forty lobsters or some combination of the two. 

 

If you can dive up here you can dive anywhere in the world. 

Ice cold water,  10 feet of visibility on average and massive rip tides and currents. 

You gotta be on your game to be a diver in new England. 

 

[UKskins]

17 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Im certified up to Rescue.  Dove in Guam, Saipan, Palau, Roatan, Mexico, amd Pensacola.  Palau spoiled me and should be on your bucket list.  Look up Blue Corner there.  Also the great Carrier Reef in Pensacola.  Especially if you like wreck/penetration dives.  There is a place in Guam called 11 mile reef (its 11 miles out) and you can see divers on the bottom at 130 ft.  Im hoping to dive in Dubai when I go there in a few months.

Ah nice, I'll definitely look to try to get out to Palau at some point.

 

Dubai should be really nice - Egypt is on the Red Sea and that is absolutely spectacular, I'd expect the Persian Gulf to be similarly incredible given the proximity and similar climate. I'm going to Australia in a couple of weeks, but not going to be able to dive this time unfortunately - hoping to get out to the Caribbean next year to get some scuba in then though. We have a quarry here in the UK that's been flooded and they've sunk a load of wrecks in specifically for diving but I've not been down there - might brave the cold and give it a go in the summer.

My dream dive spot is the Galapagos - We dove with a guy in Egypt who freelances for Discovery channel and the videos he had from the Galapagos were absolutely unreal. Hundreds of hammerheads clouding the water above him, must have been an incredible sight to see.

17 hours ago, redskinss said:

I got certified 20 years ago. 

Probably had somewhere around 250 dives or so but haven't dove in close to 10 years. 

Don't have anybody to go with anymore but it was one of the things I used to love more than just about anything. 

All cold water dives for scallops and lobsters in new England. 

Man we used to come back with so much seafood on Saturdays. 

4 divers 3 dives apiece and on a good day we'd get 40 pounds of shucked scallops or a good 30 or forty lobsters or some combination of the two. 

 

If you can dive up here you can dive anywhere in the world. 

Ice cold water,  10 feet of visibility on average and massive rip tides and currents. 

You gotta be on your game to be a diver in new England. 

 

 

I can sympathise with the cold water and poor viz diving - When I dived in the UK, it was freezing and visibility was literally about a foot as they'd had a storm a few days before which had kicked up all the silt. Once was enough for me - wouldn't catch me doing that again in a hurry - although I guess it's much easier if you know there's a bounty of lobster and scallops at the end of it!

18 hours ago, Predicto said:

I'm not an expert like GreatBuzz, but I've dove Barbados, Cozumel, Thailand, Antigua, all over Hawaii, and Monterey Kelp Forest.   

 

The best boat dive was Cozumel along the Santa Rosa wall.  The best shore dive was Mala Pier in Maui.  The most unique was night diving with Manta Rays off the Big Island of Hawaii.  

 

https://bigislanddivers.com/charters/kona-manta-ray-night-scuba-dive/

That all sounds good! How did you find Thailand? The monsoon runoff had bleached almost all the reefs when we went. Did you dive Sail Rock in the gulf of Thailand? The sheer number of fish there is literally barely believable!

[UKskins]

19 hours ago, LadySkinsFan said:

I worked with a guy and gal once who were avid divers and underwater photographers. He was from New Zealand and recommended that country for one.  This was quite a few years ago, and I can't remember all the places he went.

 

A lot of the reefs are dying because of pollution, so researching spot is good. 

Pollution and the rising sea temps are destroying the reefs everywhere - lots of conservation efforts needed if we're going to save them!

[TheGreatBuzz]

I have heard getting the permits and whatnot to dive the Galapagos is insanely difficult because they want to protect everything.  Which explains why the diving is so awesome there. 

[UKskins]

8 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I have heard getting the permits and whatnot to dive the Galapagos is insanely difficult because they want to protect everything.  Which explains why the diving is so awesome there. 

Depends where you get them - they only release a set number per year and a lot are issued to the travel industry and sold at a ridiculous cost - it is possible to get them through the Ecuadorian government but I think you have to go through a lottery system. Most reliable way is a liveaboard but you're talking several thousand dollars to get on one. Prices vary but they start at around $500 per day for the cheapest.

[Predicto]

3 hours ago, UKskins said:

 

That all sounds good! How did you find Thailand? The monsoon runoff had bleached almost all the reefs when we went. Did you dive Sail Rock in the gulf of Thailand? The sheer number of fish there is literally barely believable!

 

 

Thailand was one of my earliest trips - over 20 years ago, and we only did a couple of dives off of Phuket.  I can't remember the specific locations.   I do remember a ton of lionfish the size of basketballs, and a lot of giant clams.  

[Elessar78]

 

Scuba is for amateurs

[Skinsfan1311]

Yes.

Strictly warm water diver here.  So far, I've blown bubbles in Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Cancun, Riviera Maya,  Bermuda, St Lucia, Jamaica & Belize.  

 

On 3/11/2018 at 8:35 PM, TheGreatBuzz said:

Wife and I on a cave dive.

Cenote?

[UKskins]

18 hours ago, Predicto said:

 

 

Thailand was one of my earliest trips - over 20 years ago, and we only did a couple of dives off of Phuket.  I can't remember the specific locations.   I do remember a ton of lionfish the size of basketballs, and a lot of giant clams.  

Interesting to hear - I dived off Phuket and saw very few Lionfish and not particularly big ones. That's where the coral bleaching was worst there too, although there were some cool wrecks with a ton of Batfish hanging out. We did see a Leopard Shark there too, and randomly watched a jellyfish being killed by reef fish right in front of us as we descended - they literally just teamed up and ripped chunks off it - was a very strange sight!

 

Sail Rock is just off Koh Phangan/Koh Samui - it is worth a visit if you find yourself in the area again - there's no other landmarks on the sea floor for 4 nautical miles in any direction so ALL the fish in the area congregate around this rock. The sheer numbers there are just overwhelming - never seen anything like it.

[UKskins]

2 hours ago, Skinsfan1311 said:

Yes.

Strictly warm water diver here.  So far, I've blown bubbles in Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Cancun, Riviera Maya,  Bermuda, St Lucia, Jamaica & Belize.  

 

Those Redskins shirt dive pics are class. Might have to get involved on that next time I dive!

[TheGreatBuzz]

3 hours ago, Skinsfan1311 said:

 

 

Cenote?

Not sure if that is technically what it was.  We had to dive in to the opening underwater but the cavern towards the back had the area we took that pic.  There was no natural light in there.

[Skinsfan1311]

20 hours ago, UKskins said:

 

Those Redskins shirt dive pics are class. Might have to get involved on that next time I dive!

Thanks. 

I wear Portis when I want to out-swim sharks...and the old-school Taylor, (which I've since retired), when I want to intimidate sharks.

Seriously,  years ago, I started to throw jerseys in my dive bag. It's provides great visibility for your dive buddies and is especially helpful if you have an "insta-buddy" 

I also have "HTTR" on the bottom of my old SP jet fins...

[China]

Mussel car: Diver provides clear look at Ford Pinto at bottom of Old Mission Bay

 

A Traverse City diver's chilly excursion into Old Mission Bay last week provided an incredibly clear look at one of Lake Michigan's oddest "ship" wrecks — a 1979 Ford Pinto.

 

"It's a cool thing to go see," said diving enthusiast Chris Roxburgh, who owns an electrical contracting business in Traverse City.

 

The car, covered in quagga mussels and lake plants, is off Haserot Beach in Old Mission Bay, near the northern tip of the Old Mission Peninsula. And we're not talking a car that was left on a beach that got swallowed by the bay — this is out there, in about 20 feet of water.

 

Link to video

 

...

 

"The water was 36 degrees," he said. "I do ice diving, cold-water diving, whatever. The cold water has the best visibility, because there's no algae forming like in the summer.

 

"I dive with a wetsuit — nobody does that in the winter. But I'm pretty hardy — I can handle the cold."

 

Conditions were "amazing" the day Roxburgh dove with some other Dive North divers and shot his Pinto video.

 

"That day, I was told, was some of the best visibility the divers I was with had ever seen at that area," he said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[gbear]

I have gone diving in Guam and CNMI.  I chickened out on diving in American Samoa where they have a grotto dive that is supposed to be beautiful.  The down side is somebody seems to die there every year as they think they can get back but forget to account for how much harder it can be to swim against the tide going out.  They end up drowning in the cave trying to swim back. 

 

My favorite dives were in Saipan.  The amount of fish, wild life, and reefs I got to see there were amazing.  Managaha island off of Saipan is awesome.  In fact it is cool even for those who will only snorkel.  There is so much to see.  I do remember laughing while I was snorkeling there when it started to rain.  Suddenly, everyone was running to get out of the water.  Why?  Were they going to stay dry while snorkeling?  I didn't care it just meant less people to swim away from.

[purbeast]

On 3/11/2018 at 8:25 PM, TheGreatBuzz said:

Me riding the big gun on a sunken warship in Palau.

You need a red filter on your camera.  Your pics will come out much better.

 

I've only done SCUBA twice but want to get certified.  Once in Mexico and again last fall in the Keys off of Marathon.  I snorkel a ton though.  In all honesty, the Keys is one of the best places I've ever snorkeled.  I've seen the largest sea life there.  I've seen 6-7 foot sharks, goliath groupers, 4+ feet baracudas, 6+ feet stingrays, and the coral there is awesome too.  John Penekamp is where I've been multiple times and it's always good.  Looe Key is also good.

 

Outside of the country, the best place I've done is Grand Cayman.  Again, saw some nice sea life there and decent sized.  Stingray city was cool too but that's obviously not a dive site.  But the water there is just so damn clear the visibility is really good.  There is great shore snorkeling too so I didn't have to get out in a boat. 

 

I've also been to Aruba a bunch of times.  The snorkeling there isn't that great but I am not sure how the diving is there.  The coral is pretty bleached at most snorkel spots and I've never seen anything really big there.

[TheGreatBuzz]

10 minutes ago, purbeast said:

You need a red filter on your camera.  Your pics will come out much better.

 

Yea we learned a lot about underwater photography the more experienced we got.  This was pretty early in our new hobby.

[sportjunkie07]

Did about 8 dives and got the open water cert in Grenada. My wife is a more experienced diver and said Grenada was the best she's seen so far. 

[FrFan]

I'm 3 * CMAS and rescue diver (400+ dives).  Egypt, St Johns, Elphinstone, Brothers on a one week cruise. Clearly the best quality/value ratio.

You've got among the most beautiful in Palau, and Coco Island (nature preserve) if you're interested in the big ones !. If you come to France, go South to Marseille plenty of  wrecks including boats, submarines, Calvi Corsica (UNESCO marine preserve, B17 wreck, deep dives).

[MarkB452]

I got a NAUI (Sport diver) cert back in 1986 during my last semester of college.  It was something I always wanted to do.  BTW, this was back in the day before BCDs were hooked up to the tanks.

 

I did one dive on a WWII wreck off the NC coast near Wilmington NC that summer and have not gone back out since.

My wife started a program to get certified, but she dropped out halfway through.

We did some snorkeling in Jamaica and Kaui.  I also did some snorkeling in Puerto Rico.