The best places to dive?

[daveh735]

Hi everyone.

I am soon to be entering Stoney to do my open water training. Once this is done I will be looking at holidays next year.

As a newbie to diving where would you recommend I go?

I wouldn't mind diving with Seals after seeing the BSAC dvd, looks like fun.

[Nigel Hewitt]

Hi everyone.

I am soon to be entering Stoney to do my open water training. Once this is done I will be looking at holidays next year.

As a newbie to diving where would you recommend I go?

I wouldn't mind diving with Seals after seeing the BSAC dvd, looks like fun.
The best places? Ask the impossible question...

You have to try so much.
A warm water live-aboard (get up, dive, eat, sun yourself, dive, eat, repeat)
Cold water fish, seals and scenics.
Wrecks? Scapa Flow takes some beating.
Off the beaten track? Norway, Finland.
Bikini Atoll (see what getting nuked is like)
Galapagos for the wild life fan

I've hardly started.
A weekend out around the UK?
Weymouth is a favourite but I'm already on the South Coast.
The English are not nice people. For most of the last thousand years we've been at war with somebody so we have wrecks full of fish everywhere.
You are spoiled for choice within a few hundred miles.

[GaryC]

If you are just starting then you could do worse than diving with seals in the Farne Islands. Some easy wrecks there too. You can usualy get a dive there when you cant at other places.

Red Sea is also worth doing as it is relatively cheap for what you get. I still enjoy day boat diving in Sharm.

The sound of mull is also a good place for wrecks and do-able as OW/OD although you would probably get a little more out of it as SD/AOW.

Gary

[Mike Halligan]

Start at the Sound of Mull and head West.

[ChristianG]

Start at the Sound of Mull and head West.
OK, I'll play.

West? West?

Go East young man:

Chuuk (Micronesia) Lagoon: quite possibly the best wrecks in the world, as a group.
Papua New Guinea: sensational (individual) wrecks and, ditto, coral. Mud diving to die for (you might, salt water crocodiles are not gentle creatures).
Solomon Islands: the USS Aaron Ward, guns bristling, but lying rather deep. Also the corals and some much shallower wrecks, including some almost too shallow, the Japanese beached them as throwaway landing craft in WWII.
Indonesia: too many places to type in here.
Australia: The Great Whites of South Oz, also their Leafy Sea Dragons which are worth a journey for themselves. Their lesser cousins are the Common Sea Dragons of NSW. No, they're not really.
Philippines: Lots.
Thailand: Lots.
No particular order and I've missed out lots, funny thing about that. :rolleyes:

I haven't even scratched the surface. Recognise though that many of these places will only be available to you with quite a lot of diving experience, leave alone training.

[Mike Halligan]

East or West, Kiwi = awesome!!! :D :D

[daveh735]

Plenty of choices then :)

Thanks for all the suggestions folks..

[PeteM]

Plenty of choices then :)

Yep, we are an island, proceed in any direction and you will find somewhere to dive within a couple of hundred miles

[ChristianG]

Yep, we are an island, proceed in any direction and you will find somewhere to dive within a couple of hundred miles
So are we Pete, but sometimes it's going to take just a bit longer. ;)

Alice Springs, as the crow flies, to:

Sydney: 1261/2030 miles/kilometres
Brisbane: 1220/1964
Cairns: 901/1451
Darwin: 802/1291
Broome WA: 850/1368
Perth: 1239/1995
Adelaide: 827/1330
Melbourne: 1175/1892
Sydney to Perth: 2049/3297

I obviously have time on my hands. :D

It does serve a useful purpose though. It reminds some of you Europeans who may come here, especially now that our summer approaches, that distances in this wide, brown land are not (as frequently perceived) a hop, skip and a jump, France (the largest country in Western Europe by area) fits into Oz 14+ times for example, Germany 21.5 times, England as close as dammit to 59 times and the UK 31.5 times pretty well exactly. In fact Oz can comfortably cover the whole of Western Europe, including Scandinavia and reaching as far as Moscow and Istanbul.

You could pretty well lose Wales and Scotland in lots of Oz, not a bad idea given they get lots of rain which we are always in dire need of. Come to think of it, you could do that with the whole of the UK. There are a few of our deserts that immediately spring to mind - just as long as you bring that rain with you. :D

Edit/: PS Apologies for the entirely Off Topic post.

[GaryC]

Edit/: PS Apologies for the entirely Off Topic post.

Don't worry we all know here that its the quality not the quantity that counts.

Not sure why anyone would want to dive in a land that has more creatures that sting, bite or eat you, anyway.

Gary

[ChristianG]

Not sure why anyone would want to dive in a land that has more creatures that sting, bite or eat you, anyway.
Chuckle.

I've been here since, oh, 1960 and, last time I looked, I'm still alive. :)

Some might beg to differ. :eek:

[daveh735]

I dont fancy being bitten, chewed or stung. I was watching a documentary the other day and a few divers reported being attacked by giant eels. One ripped through the guys dive suit.

Anyone ever experienced an attack from anything ?

[Ed Howarth]

I dont fancy being bitten, chewed or stung. I was watching a documentary the other day and a few divers reported being attacked by giant eels. One ripped through the guys dive suit.

Anyone ever experienced an attack from anything ?

Some have suffered under the withering pen of ChristianG :D

Ed

[Eddie Clamp]

Hi everyone.
I am soon to be entering Stoney to do my open water training. Once this is done I will be looking at holidays next year.
As a newbie to diving where would you recommend I go?
I wouldn't mind diving with Seals after seeing the BSAC dvd, looks like fun.

Well! I am sure you will get advice from all and sundry :rolleyes: :p .

Not too popular it seems at the moment but go here to have a shufti at dive reports from all over the world written by like minded diving folks:

http://www.bsac.com/findit.asp?cat=tripreports&section=1511&itemTitle=Use+this+tool+to+access+national+%26+int ernational+BSAC+dive+information%2E&view=list&lat1=-83.67694304841552&lat2=83.67694304841554&lng1=-180&lng2=180&glat=0&glng=0&gzoom=1

:p

Good luck with your training!

[ChristianG]

I dont fancy being bitten, chewed or stung. I was watching a documentary the other day and a few divers reported being attacked by giant eels. One ripped through the guys dive suit.

Anyone ever experienced an attack from anything ?
Well, the odds are that you have a great deal more chance of being bitten by the yappy little dog next door rather than a moray, conger or shark or whatever. It's also why I advocate the use of a full lycra suit in parts of the world where you don't need something thicker just to keep the stingers at bay.

Having said that there is a video somewhere, probably on You Tube, which depicts how a Caribbean guide (IIRC) gets his thumb removed by a moray. As well, I'm living proof that morays can bite because a moray went straight through my lycra halfway between my elbow and wrist (20 odd stitches) at the Cod Hole on the GBR (Great Barrier Reef) many years ago. Those morays were then relocated because that was not the first time it had happened.

In both instances it was a case of overfamiliarity with divers and simply emphasises the point that wild creatures will lose respect if they become too familiar with us hooman beans. It is, however, an incredibly rare phenomenon.

I am not a fan, never have been, of feeding wild animals, in fact I'd shot off from where the potato cod were being fed when "my" moray got me. Yup, he (she?) wasn't a small creature.

[GaryC]

Well, the odds are that you have a great deal more chance of being bitten by the yappy little dog next door rather than a moray, conger or shark or whatever.
You are probably right. But most people understand the yappy dog body language and can either keep away or take other action. In warm waters especially Austraila, some of the dangerous sea creatures don't really look dangerous. A peanut size jelly fish that can kill you and a 3cm octopus (Blue Ringed?)that can also do a lot of damage. I guess a moray is fairly obvious but that still does not stop some folk getting close. (Seen that in the red sea)


In both instances it was a case of overfamiliarity with divers and simply emphasises the point that wild creatures will lose respect if they become too familiar with us hooman beans. It is, however, an incredibly rare phenomenon.

I am not a fan, never have been, of feeding wild animals, in fact I'd shot off from where the potato cod were being fed when "my" moray got me. Yup, he (she?) wasn't a small creature.
I once saw a guy in the red sea (in my club at the time) picking up a cone shell and closely examine it. He then got a slap round the back of the head from the DO, and subsequently dropped it. It was explained to him later that if it had stung him, he would have been in extreme pain or worse. He had no ideat what it was.

It has always been my rule never to touch anything unless its a wreck or the odd lobster. That way it is less likely to get you.

So diving certainly in the UK is certainly inherantly safer than warm waters when it comes to creatures. You can dive knowing that there is little if any that can bite, sting or eat you.

However I did a dive in Loch Ness many years ago and only to 5 metres. Got to the point where I was overlooking the abyss that are the vertical sides of the loch. I had an overpowering feeling that there might be something large out there with big teeth. Not sure why really.

Gary

[ChristianG]

In warm waters especially Austraila, some of the dangerous sea creatures don't really look dangerous. A peanut size jelly fish that can kill you and a 3cm octopus (Blue Ringed?)that can also do a lot of damage.
The Sea Wasp, Chironex fleckeri and the box or irukandji jellyfish, Carukia barnesi and several of its cousins can certainly kill you. They usually however confine themselves to coastal waters usually around the mouths of estuaries whereas the GBR is nowhere near Australia's coastline, being closest at Port Douglas I believe but there are still some 50 kilometres or so (from memory) before you get to the first reef. The itty bitty baby blue ringed octopus is not lethal, nor damaging, provided the bite is treated correctly. What happens is that the victim becomes paralysed, fully aware of their surroundings but unable to breathe. Treatment is artificial respiration for 6 - 12 hours after which a full recovery will usually occur. It's a good idea to also close the victim's eyelids if not in the shade to protect the eyes from the sun and to speak very sternly to any idiot who says something like "looks like he's carked it" because the victim can also hear the remark. Yes, apparently it's happened.

I once saw a guy in the red sea (in my club at the time) picking up a cone shell and closely examine it. He then got a slap round the back of the head from the DO, and subsequently dropped it. It was explained to him later that if it had stung him, he would have been in extreme pain or worse. He had no ideat what it was.
That's just plain ignorance.

However I did a dive in Loch Ness many years ago and only to 5 metres. Got to the point where I was overlooking the abyss that are the vertical sides of the loch. I had an overpowering feeling that there might be something large out there with big teeth. Not sure why really.
I canoed the length of Loch Ness, in absolutely foul weather (is there any other around those parts?), as a schoolboy and a guest :eek: of the Outward Bound Moray Sea School, sadly no more. I must say that I was not amused by the experience and I suspect I was not the only one of the roughly two dozen boys to think so. Actually there's a pretty poor and monocolour picture of me as stroke oar in one of the OBMSS's cutters somewhere in the piccies section. I have no idea why I was stroke oar, I wouldn't know one end of an oar from the other.

Anyone who goes to the picture, there's just one bloke (sitting in the stern) who is not wearing a lifejacket, he's the Instructor, a clear case of "do as I say, not as I do".

[daveh735]

Thanks for all the info everyone :)

I dont think I will be venturing into waters over the next few months. Stoney will be cold at this time of year. Not one for cold weather me.

[PeteM]

Thanks for all the info everyone :)

I dont think I will be venturing into waters over the next few months. Stoney will be cold at this time of year. Not one for cold weather me.

The sea is considerably warmer than Stoney Cold at this time of year

[daveh735]

The sea is considerably warmer than Stoney Cold at this time of year

Unfortunately Stoney comes first as I have not finished my ocean diving course. I cannot wait to get into the sea.

[PeteM]

Unfortunately Stoney comes first as I have not finished my ocean diving course. I cannot wait to get into the sea.

You can teach in the sea

[daveh735]

You can teach in the sea

Our club uses Stoney for training, I would love to go into the sea if its warmer :)

Doubt that can happen at the moment though.