Scuba Diving

[cosmocat]

Heya,
Ive dived in Gozo, Thailand and Oz and would have to say that the best has to be a shark diving liveaboard 4 day trip out from Cairns, past the Great Barrier Reef and out to the Coral Sea.
The visibility is awesome- 50m!!!!:shock:
We dived and swam with tons of sharks (grey reef, white and silver tips and hammerheads), turtles, rays, moray eels and plenty of fish, including a friendly huge pet potato cod who always comes under the boat to get a stroke!!!
Yes it is a little far from here, but it should definitely be on your to do list! :mrgreen:

[rhino]

Hey,

wow, this is cool, scuba diving medics

Has anyone ever dived in Tanzania or Zanzibar, i'm off there this summer for a bit of trekking and general travelling and being the keen diver that I am want to spend a bit of time diving :P Anyone ever been, good recommendations- companies, sites, etc? I hear that some companies are a bit dodgey and have equipment in poor repair etc.

cheers

[troubs]

I did my open water course (PADI) last december in Portsmouth and am looking for a cheap week diving somewhere warm (I can't handle the cold again, not in a wetsuit!). Any recommendations guys and gals?Wuzz- As Sipadan pointed out, the Red Sea is easy to get to and relatively cheap. And a damn sight warmer than Pompey waters! You can get cheap charter flights to Sharm el Sheik for example and then get your arse down to somewhere like Dahab- not as huge a tourist trap as Sharm and so its cheaper, reefs not as good as Sharm for the sealife but you have the Blue Hole at least...and its far more chilled out. I was there at the start of Feb- flights under £200 and everything else within £100 (accommodation whilst basic is cheap- i.e. 4euros a night for en suite, and food is cheap there too). Can definitely recommend Fantasea divers if you need someone for decent equipment/refreshers etc. They will ask you to do a quick refresher session in the sea if its been 6 months since you did you open water but its for your safety. PM me if you want any other details!

[quinziye]

I did my Padi open water in swannage, and it was february and had two wetsuits on but i have never been so cold in my whole life, not going to go back since now been diving in turkey and did advanced OW in grenada caribbean diving with sharks and turtles, amazing! Going to egypt this year, dehab, heard it is amazing. They did a review in it in dive mag last month, wow cant wait!

[delusion]

Poor Knights Marine Reserve, Whangrei, New Zealand. Will take your bcd away

[rjm]

Roatan, Honduras. No wetsuits required, 35m visibility, lots to see, and the average price of a dive is about US$20. Shame you have to pay so much to get there in the first place. But if you just happened to be in the area....

[troubs]

Poor Knights Marine Reserve, Whangrei, New Zealand. Will take your bcd away

<--Yep definitely loved that one.

SS Coolidge, Luganville Vanuatu is the one that completely took my breath away though. World's largest diveable wreck, guns, shells and fish everywhere...the Lady run...loved it all. Not a cheap one and a tad hard to get to from the UK (although now that Pacific Blue have set up flights from Brisbane to Vila its not as bad...). Definitely recommend that one to anyone heading to the South Pacific.

[annaspanna]

I learned to dive in mexico on the yucatan penisula in a pplace called Mahahual. It was amazing. The coral there is fantastic, and you see turtles and rays and things loads!
I was on a conservation project we were surveying the coral reef.
This thread is great because I really want to go diving this summer and this is giving me loads of ideas.

[IVmaster]

learning to dive in honduras was cool and amazingly cheap - $15US a dive! Really good dive schools too. I did on Utila rather than Roatan (as is cheaper and more for backpackers), but both are beautiful.

[Jo8]

Totally agree with the above!

I learnt to dive in the cold waters of south Devon and Cornwall but then cleverly chose to do my rescue course out in Honduras during my gap year!

I spent a week on the caribbean island of Utila which is, as IVmaster says, a great place to meet other backpackers and it's cheaper - really enjoyed my time on the island and would love to go back! It's one of the cheapest places in the world to dive and I got to see a whale shark too!

Other than that - the diving in Mexico is great too - there are cenotes which are fresh water caverns and it's cold but absolutely stunning!

My dad's a DM and recommends liveaboards in the Red Sea for a cheap getaway - he usually books a week before he leaves so it's a bargain!