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BEST diving experience

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What was it and where?
13 years ago, January 29th 2011 No: 1 Msg: #127693  
Tell us about your BEST diving experience: was it diving with mantas?, cage diving with sharks?, was it your first time underwater? Reply to this

13 years ago, January 29th 2011 No: 2 Msg: #127704  
For me, it was in Sipadan, Malaysia. It's just paradise down there: we lost count of the turtles we saw, we were surrounded by barracudas, got close to sharks... just GREAT!! Reply to this

13 years ago, January 30th 2011 No: 3 Msg: #127725  
B Posts: 460
Fish Rock Cave off South West Rocks in New South Wales, Australia. A 120m swim-through featuring grey nurse sharks, wobbegongs (aka carpet sharks), various rays, turtles, and umpteen smaller creatures. For someone fairly recently qualified (i.e. me at the time), the requirement for good buoyancy control in a confined space was both terrifying and exhilarating, but once I'd stopped gulping oxygen like it was going out of fashion, it was a gobsmacking experience. Reply to this

13 years ago, January 30th 2011 No: 4 Msg: #127730  
My top 3 places, Galapagos, Palau and Tubbataha (Philippines).

Best night dive ever, Kona, Hawai, with 6 mantas.

Best dive moment ever....I must admit the first dive with my son last October...it was a family dive as it Mari was also there.

Best dives for the "big stuffs" are in Galapagos, south of Durban (South Africa), Tofo (Mozambique).

This year will reach my 30th country in term of diving...but there is still a lot on the wish list that haven't been booked...PNG, Cocos, Tonga in August....and some which are already solid in the planning... Reply to this

13 years ago, January 30th 2011 No: 5 Msg: #127747  
Nikki & I love wreck diving & by far the best was diving SS Thistlegorm in Sharm, absolutely breathtaking just unfortunate they have no restrictions on numbers of people allowed to dive it at any one time, we were lucky though the numbers of people were evenly spread throughout.

Best for fish for us has to be the Maldives, but number one on our wishlist is Galapagos, one day we'll visit there! :-) Reply to this

13 years ago, January 30th 2011 No: 6 Msg: #127754  
B Posts: 897
Hmm hard one...It could be diving with Mantas while a Komodo dragon swam across the channel to Rinca Island, it could be Manta Point at Penida (im a big fan of manta rays), it could be the dive where I kissed a shark named Max near the Merguii Archipeligo, It could be the wreck of the japanese B52 or the japanese mini sub wreck in Papua New Guinea, it could be the freediving with a juvenile humpback whale at Ningaloo when he decided to stay and play with human for three hours and have his belly scratched......but its probably the dive in PNG where we saw a rainbow disappearing into the sea infront of a volcano rumbling away so suited up and in we went to find the pot of gold. There IS a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but theres a crocodile who guards it. Because diving with crocodiles of any size is generally not cool we popped over the reef to find an amazing garden of giant sponges so I hung inside a barrel sponge with three flamboyant cuttlefish flashing all their amazing colours and patterns watching schools of giant trevally and giant barracudas zipping along in the currents. At the decom stop lying on my back gazing up through insanely clear water watching a blue ulysses butterfly float past on a leaf......I kinda think that one will be hard to top...but im certainly going to enjoy spending the rest of my years chasing a dive as overwhelming as that one!
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13 years ago, January 30th 2011 No: 7 Msg: #127755  
For us it would have to be the S.S Yongala wreck off Ayr, located in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park... We only have 48 logged dives though so not a huge amount to choose from... Although not as exciting as other wreck dives we've done, where you can swim through it etc... it was teeming with life!

There were swarms of colourful reef fish pouring over every feature, massive shoals of Giant Trevally circling the wreck, huge Hawksbill turtles, green turtles everywhere you looked, defiant lion fish, sea snakes swimming all over the place. we even watched a shovelnose ray glide over the wreck. Every look at it was a feast for the eyes... simply spectacular...

Sadly until the boys get old enough to learn (only another 9 years to go), or we find adequate childcare we won't be diving for a while! 😞 Reply to this

13 years ago, January 31st 2011 No: 8 Msg: #127796  
B Posts: 20
Definitely diving in Flores with more than 40 inquisitive mantas! The current was strong so we clung on to some rocks and let the mantas come to us. They were amazing and so intrigued by us that they'd come within inches of us.

It was the most colourful dive I've ever done with so many species of fish and bright coral that I didn't know where to look.

Anyone in Indonesia should definitely try to get to Flores, well worth it! Reply to this

13 years ago, January 31st 2011 No: 9 Msg: #127800  
Faye and Michael, don't worry, you may not need to wait 9 years...our little guy was snorkeling above us from the time he was 7. He was properly equipped, in easy water, with a crew to keep an eye on him (and he could swim properly). Did not stop us to dive. I have to admit, he was counting the days to his 10th birthday, and the tuffer part was to see him at 9 looking at children just few years older than him able to dive.

If you chose your diving places properly, it's also possible to have one parent diving in the monring while the other one do the afternoon ive. Ok, not as great, but better than not diving at all... Reply to this

13 years ago, January 31st 2011 No: 10 Msg: #127821  
Growing up in the US most of our experiences have been in the Caribbean, although we have been to Australia, Fiji and I have been to Raratonga.

A bad day of diving is always better than a day a work.

Our best diving was in Cayman Brac--- Bloody Bay wall is beautiful, lots of fish and turtles. Unbelievable visibility. Grand Cayman offers a lot of swim throughs, tunnels and a wide variety of marine life. Sting Ray city is in Grand Caymans they feed them so they always swim around you. They will sell you a video of the dive if you are not careful. Bonaire offers great diving and a lot of shore dives.

The Bahamas offers a lot of shark diving, sandy bottoms with lots of sting rays.

You can look on our page as to all the islands we have been to and if you have specific questions about diving on any particular island we will be happy to answer more specific questions.

Reply to this

13 years ago, February 1st 2011 No: 11 Msg: #127935  
Best diving experience to date ... Well, will be hard to name only one!

Cave diving in sipadan was a one of a kind experience, two tanks, 90+mn under water in a turtle cemetery underworld

Clouds of barracuda swimming above us in barracuda point sipadan was another one...

Handing up face to face with a pacific ocean manta (3 meters wide..) in south of costa rica was quite unforgettable

Colors ... Well bunaken, Indonesia is definitely worth a stop

Diversity / macro, with dives where after 1hour under water you definitely have to force yourself to go back to the surface, lembeh Indonesia

Guess in the next 6 months I will have a few more to add to the list and these will not be the classic diving destinations!





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13 years ago, February 4th 2011 No: 12 Msg: #128146  
The Sipadan cave dive sounds awesome! Reply to this

13 years ago, February 4th 2011 No: 13 Msg: #128152  

Wish all of us were with Ali right now. I'll bet he is having a great time. Reply to this

12 years ago, May 25th 2011 No: 14 Msg: #137094  
i was in mexico last year with my brother and sister, snorkeling. it was amazing. the water was so blue and clear, and i couldn't believe how many fish i was seeing around me. it was only an hour worth of snorkeling, and right when they were calling us to get back into the boat we saw a huge school of fish being stalked by a baracuda. i did all i could to stay and watch the baracuda make a move. the tension of anticipation was killing me. too bad i had to get on board before i see the story unfold. nature is the best entertainment. Reply to this

12 years ago, June 13th 2011 No: 15 Msg: #138252  
1. My 9th dive in Seychelles with 20 reef sharks
2. My 11th dive in Kona Hawaii with 6 Mantas flying above you
3. My 12th dive in Hin Muang Thailand two whale shark and a manta
4. Sipadan
5. 75th dive Bali and a beautiful Mola mola :D
6. 88th dive in Tofo Mozambique a small eyed ray
And the list could go on and on... But in the end of the day all my dives are miracles for me and gives me a different view on the earth. Down there is peace and silence.
I know I saw most of the big stuff in the beginning of my diver life but there are so more to see and can't wait to collect the trophies of memories of the creatures of the ocean and the see. Thank to Peter it has been great and the future sounds great too 😉
[Edited: 2011 Jun 13 09:20 - missmvictor:148721 ]
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12 years ago, June 14th 2011 No: 16 Msg: #138294  
Ma'ri, I've been following your blogs and Peter's as well and I wanted to say that I find very impressive the amount of dives you've got on your log book in such a short time!!, I know you reached your 100th dive not long ago, so congrats for that!!.

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12 years ago, July 22nd 2011 No: 17 Msg: #140753  
Lake Malawi - doing a day and night dive. Not my greatest dive but will stick in my memory bank.

Sipidan

Wreck Diving in Coron

Tofo doing my first negative dive and then a manta ray shadowing the sunlight. Reply to this

12 years ago, July 22nd 2011 No: 18 Msg: #140779  
Hey Drew, what's a negative dive?

I agree with Sipadan... so amazing! Reply to this

12 years ago, July 24th 2011 No: 19 Msg: #140862  
negative entry sorry was pretty tired at the time I typed it.
Deflate your BCD jump in and go straight under so the current doesn't take you past the site. Reply to this

12 years ago, July 24th 2011 No: 20 Msg: #140866  
I see!!!... I wouldn't have know anyway, never heard of it!! :oP Reply to this

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