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Taiwan East China SeaIf you would like to find out more about dives sites in Southern Taiwan and elsewhere in the country or perhaps you are visiting Taiwan and would like to do some fun dives, or perhaps you live and work in Taiwan and you would like take some PADI Scuba Diving courses, please contact us.
Joe Cooperman
PADI Scuba Diving Instructor
#477967
click here to email OCEAN DIVING CLUB Taichung City
Taiwan
more info about Southern Taiwan including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Taiwan East China SeaThe Southern tip of Taiwan is home to a variety of easily accessible dive sites. One of our favorite ones is located just outside of the beach town of Kenting. Ho Bi Hu, is located (often the butt of jokes) quite near to a nuclear power station. It is sheltered by a breakwater on one side and protective shoreline on the other making something of a small bay. The put-in point is accessible by car and deep channels eroded into the dead coral shore make it fairly easy to get to during both high and low tide. The water is warm and the visibility is very good during the winter months however strong winds can bluster creating side-shore surface currents. Most times however, the bay is fairly calm. The channels get deeper and deeper until they drop over a wall to about 10 meters. Divers can then swim along sandy bottoms inbetween widely spaced balmies. Lots of good soft corals in abundance. Plenty of Angel Fish, Bat Fish, Trigger fish, Wrasses and smaller types. Lion fish are also very common here. I have seen large octopus and cuttle fish in this area from time to time.
Ho Bi Hu is a very good introduction to diving in Southern Taiwan although it can be very crowded from time to time, especially in the summer and spring. Anoyances include large parties of snorklers who appear in the spring and summer who cannot swim but are issued life jackets and cling to large floating devices issued by tour companies.
We typically use Ho Bi Hu for Open Water Dives #3 and #4 when teaching students.
If you would like to find out more about dives sites in Southern Taiwan and elsewhere in the country or perhaps you are visiting Taiwan and would like to do some fun dives, or perhaps you live and work in Taiwan and you would like take some PADI Scuba Diving courses, please contact us.
Joe Cooperman
PADI Scuba Diving Instructor
#477967
OCEAN DIVING CLUB Taichung City
Taiwan
more info about Ho Bi Hu (Kenting) including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Greece Ionian SeaA Great dive site in Lefkas island. A wall becoming a canyon and in the end of the canyon there is a swim through cave 30 m long. Vissibility great max depth 43m
more info about The Canyon including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Antarctica Antarctic (Southern Ocean)Breathless takes on a new meaning with this truly once in a lifetime expedition -after my last voyage in 2003, I decide to arrange for a special photographic trip, sort of an Antarctica Unplugged – the best of our last frontier in one trip. Short of chartering our own ocean going vessel, we are going to command our own inflatable on all excursions – this way we can explore at our own pace and most importantly we aim to max out photographic opportunities. Only 10 people in my group. Imagine thousands of King penguins, Rockhopper, Magellanic, Chin straps, Gentoo King, Adelie and Macaroni penguins all in one trip. Of course there will be the Elephant seals, Leopard seals, Crab eaters, Weddels and most often we will cruise along side humpback whales. Though we will not be on scuba, we be looking out for opportunities to snorkel with the seals and to do some over and under images of ice bergs.
more info about Antarctica including maps, reviews, and ratings...
United States PacificMonterey California.
Perfect diving for everybody. The water is a bit cold so 2 layers of 7mm or a dry-suit is needed. The viz can range between non or 50 ...
There are plenty of sites for all level of divers, Breakwater is perfect for first-timers and night dives. Monastary beach is more for the experienced divers, watch the beach entry because it can be quite tricky.
Diveshops, daytrips (boat) are available.
The dives are full of sea-lions, lingcod, cabezon, kelp .. etc etc
For some examples:
website more info about Monterey, California including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Philippines South China SeaThis one of the beautiful dive sites of Puerto Galera: more than 20 different very interesting diving sites can be rapidly reached for both drift, shallows, drop-off and open-water dives, always on colourful coral reef gardens, which easily lend themselves to macro photography. Frog fishes, sea horses, ghost pipefishes, nudibranchs as well as white-tip reef sharks, sea turtles, barracudas, large-sized trevallies (carangidae), sea-eagles etc. can easily be encountered.
website more info about Canyon Puerto Galera including maps, reviews, and ratings...
United KingdomGreat dive site, friendly atmosphere, plenty of fellow divers to help and assist.
Access to Stoney Cove for diving is available to all registered divers during opening hours every day except during the Christmas and New Year holidays. You will find details in the current Stoney Cove Report. All diving projects other than instruction and general sports diving must be declared and agreed with the duty site manager.
stoney cove
sapcote road
stoney stanton
leicestershire
le9 4dw
tel: 01455 273089
more info about Stoney Cove including maps, reviews, and ratings...
QatarIt is a nice site to dive from shore.
more info about Old clup reef including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Vietnam South China SeaNot so many large animals, but nice place, nice people (Rainbow Divers divebase,
website more info about Turtle Island by Phu Quock Island including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Dominica Caribbean SeaScotts Head Pinnacles straddles the top of a submerged volcanic crater,creating the southern rim of the Soufriere Scotts Head Marine Reserve, the isthmus seperates the Atlantic from the Caribbean and is a nutirent mixing zone. This brings in small fish which are fed upon by larger.
The mooring pin is on top of a large rock riddled with cracks and crevices and one swim through, on a shalf of 10m depth, filled with lobster and soldierfish. From the pin one swims to the main pinnacle where two large rocks abut forming an arch, this is filled with soft corals, lobster and fish. Going through the arch takes you from the Atlantic into the Caribbean, the wall begins in 3m and drops vertically to 35 before sloping to approximately 1500m, on a good day you tend to ignore the huge gorgonains, barrel sponges and other life dripping from the wall and spend the dive looking out to sea at the schooling fish, on a bad day the wall is more than enough for the jaded reef diver to come up saying "wow!", remember this is a mixing zone loads of nutirents so lots of life and opportunity for growth on the reef and in the water column. If the current is running it is a drift along the wall back to the edge of the reef and onto the shelf,but the ride is worth it. From the edge of the reef heading back to the shelf is a garden of macro life and well worth loking for seahorses frogfish etc. in addition to small barracuda looking at you like you owe them money, going through the swimthrough under the moring pin will bring you to the top of the first pinnnacle and under the boat for your safety stop.
This is one of the dives I do to remind myself that theres more to life than stress.
more info about Scotts Head Pinnacles including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Belgium North SeaDuring winter you should go diving in one of our quarries like La Gombe in Esneux (near Luik (Liege) In summertime Diving on the wrecks in the North sea is very good and popular among belgium divers. Also The 'Oosterschelde' in holland is popular (Wemeldinge)
more info about Belgian diving including maps, reviews, and ratings...
AustriaOne popular region to do diving is the Salzkammergut in Austria. Numerous large and small lakes in an alpine setting. Conditions are the same as for the Bodensee: deep, dark, cold, clear.
The viz can be 100’/30M which is as good (if not better) than the Red Sea. Of course the marine life and color is not quite like the Red Sea!
more info about Freshwater lakes, Grundsee including maps, reviews, and ratings...
GermanyOne of the best lakes to dive in Germany is the "Bodensee" in southern Germany. The Bodensee, some 80 km long is bordered by Germany, Switzerland, and Austria (hey, that's Austria, not Australia !:)). One spot popular with divers is in the german town of Ueberlingen: deep, dark, cold and clear...vertical wall all the way dwon to 400 ft.
more info about Lakes including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Antigua & Barbuda Caribbean SeaI don't know how helpful I can be because I was there in 1989. I'm sure many things have changed there especially in light of the storms that have hit. I stayed at a friends timeshare right on the beach and there was a dive shop within walking distance. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name. But the dive shop was owned by a guy named "Big John" and I would dive with him again in a second. He is somewhat of a legend there and actually founded some of the more popular dive spots. I was there in November and water temp was 75+ and air was 85 avg. The viz was fair...not great for Caribbean diving though....avg was 40 ft. I saw huge ray ( 8 ft wing span ), turtles, lobsters, an octopus, lots of nurse sharks. If you can, try to do a dive that is called... I think.... "The Shoots" or "The Slides". It's a big rock crevice and the current actually pulls you through it just like being on a ride. It might be near English Harbor but I'm not sure. It's a very cool dive though and VERY different from any other dive I've done. English Harbor itself is about a 100 ft dive. It's ok and also some crevices and neat rock formations that you can go through. But the one I mean actually PULLS you through and it's in about 50 ft of water.
more info about Various including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Turkey Mediterranean Sea The highlights are 'Mexican Hat' , 'Aladdin's Cave' , 'Three
Tunnels' and the night dive on 'Rabbit Island' .
Mexican Hat was excellent! We descended to approx 20 metres from where we
entered a tunnel (3-4 m in diameter) through which we finned upwards until we
did a safety stop at 6 m where the water becomes like a 'heat haze': natural
spring water mixing with the salty seawater. We surfaced in the most amazing
'cavern' and when we turned our torches off we could see the light coming
through the rocks and the sea shone a brilliant turquoise. Another dive site
similar to this one was Aladdin's Cave, but where we surfaced there was a hole
in the top of the rocks and it was equally beautiful with the sun shining
through to the water where we bobbed about on our inflated BCD's. The Three
Tunnels was another 'adventurous' dive as it involved diving in and out of
narrow ravines. The highlight of that dive was waiting for the group to emerge
and seeing the air bubbles permeate through the tunnel 'roofs'.
Rabbit Island night dive was fun as my buddy and I busily searched 'Navy
Seals style'(!) with our torches under rocks and in nooks and crannies and felt
a sense of achievement when, amongst the more usual array of marine life, we
discovered 2 octopus and watched as one changed color to a pale blue and then a
pale pink. We also saw a red baby octopus with white spots, not such a great
camouflage!
There were only two disappointing dives (in terms of lack of sea life and
topographical interest): Aldiana Bay and one of the night dives at Aquarium
Reef . Aldiana Bay, I gathered from general chit chat, is not considered one
of the better dive sites and it is possible that we just got bad timing with the
night dive at Aquarium Reef. Rabbit Island for the night dive, however, we
recommend highly.
more info about Rabbit Island including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Germany Baltic SeaWe travelled to the port of Greifswald in the former East Germany to board the Artur Becker. This is a converted survey ship that has been refitted for the needs of sport divers with an air compressor and recompression chamber on board. The captain, Karl - Heinz Hanke, has wide experience of the Baltic and the entire crew were helpful and supportive throughout our charter. Conditions aboard were basic but comfortable although we had to cater for ourselves.
WRECK LOCATION REMARKS Cypriot Freighter 54 22.800, 16 14.200 Wreck upside down in 20 m
Vulture 54 57.800, 15 05.300 Not found in reported location
Zulu 4 Submarine 55 14.720, 14 39.430 Upright in 35 m
Koronowa 55 13.283, 14 33.072 Located but not dived
Odin 55 24.366, 12 36.333 Not found in reported location
Knippla 55 18.400, 12 47.850 Well broken wreck in 20 m
Tinda 54 55.133, 13 12.000 Not found in reported location
Unknown Wreck 54 53.908, 13 23.158 Large wreck upright in 48 m
more info about The Baltic including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Croatia Mediterranean Sea
is a wall\rock dive down to 30mtrs with
Amphora to spy.
BANJA , Very rocky with lots of holes to poke about in.
The GARDA is a flat wreck and worth a good rummage and at 23 metres
SESTRICA , Lighthouse rock. A site with rocks within 2mtrs of the surface
in the middle of a channel we thought maybe we would find something, afraid not,
but lots of life.
MAJSAN , a swim down to 30mtrs to look at an anchor dumping ground
including a thirteenth century anchor, three metres tall stood upright on the
bottom
The BOCA , in 10mtrs a total awe-inspiring 28yr old huge wreck which
stands proud of the surface. It is very intact with all parts assessable
including the engine room, machine shop with lathe, cargo, spare prop, main prop
and portholes. (Don't touch). The story is that the skipper was drunk and didn't
see the shore, bang. You can see the hulls concertina shape as the bow stopped
and the stern didn't. You must visit this site.
DUBA East , Octopus reef, 25mtrs Octopus and Conger.
DUBA West , A rocky wall dive with Amphora wedged in the rocks.
more info about Kneza including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Lebanon Mediterranean Sea
The Souffleur
The submarine 'Souffleur' is a French Vichy Submarine, built in 1924
and sunk by the British on April 25th 1941 with a loss of 50 lives.
The Macedonia
This wreck is starting to form an artificial reef. The 'Macedonia' is
the shallowest of the diveable wrecks, laying in 2 sections in 16M. She was a
cargo ship who ran aground on the shallow rocks during the 1960's. The crew
managed to keep her afloat until the cargo was removed and she was then sold to
an individual in order to be broken up for scrap. Unfortunately, the new owner
was unable to complete his task, as the remains of the ship sank during a storm!
This is not a breathtaking dive as she is barely recognizable as a ship; the
remains are mainly broken ribs and plates but her position next to a small reef
means she has been fairly well colonized and Groupers and Morays are common.
Lobsters can be seen in season and we were fortunate enough to encounter a
Common Guitarfish.
Alice B
The ' Alice B ' is an excellent wreck for penetration dives and very
photogenic due to the fact that she sits upright and largely intact at 37M. The
Militia sank her during the civil war in order to make an insurance claim. She
was declared 'lost at sea' and the insurance company duly paid out one million
US dollars in compensation! Still, the insurance company's loss is our gain!
more info about The Souffleur including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Anguilla Caribbean Sea
The refloating and sinking of four vessels in 1990 increased
the number and variety of dive sites found in Anguilla's waters. Since then, a
considerable amount of coral growth has been noted as well as the attraction of
an abundance of marine life in terms of schools of baitfish, jacks and a wide
variety of demersal species. The ships have settled well and are sitting upright
facing the waves. Seven wreck dive sites in addition to excellent reef and wall
dives suitable for both novice and experienced divers offer expanded dive
opportunities. The quality and diversity of dives, coupled with attractive daily
discounted multi-day dive rates, make Anguilla a rewarding destination for scuba
divers seeking 'new' dives. Divers can choose from an array of
accommodations, ranging from cozy inns and guesthouses with rates between $50
and $125 daily to luxurious resorts where each dollar a guests spends is value
received in the sheer beauty of the surroundings and the level of service
rendered. Anguilla now has two full service dive centers with programs catering
to divers and their non diving companions. Some examples of dive sites regularly
visited include the wreck of the 230 foot long M.V. Sara at a depth of 80
feet, an imposing backdrop for underwater photographs. Sunk only last year, the
wreck has already attracted an impressive amount of marine life. ' Prickly
Pear ' at a depth of 30-70 feet is noted for its underwater canyon
characterized by ledges and caverns. 'Grouper Bowl' at a depth of 25-
50 feet is part of the Sail Reef System and home to some of Anguilla's hard
coral formations. Large groupers are found among the overhangs and small
caverns. 'Little Bay and ' Frenchman's Reef ' at depths of
15 to 40 feet are excellent novice wand photographic dives featuring an
abundance of marine life.
more info about Reefs, Anguilla including maps, reviews, and ratings...
Puerto Rico Caribbean Sea
The Black Wall – 97 ft
This dive is on a wall covered with black corals and is pretty typical of the
profile that we dove for the wall dives. The top of the reef is at 60 feet and
we dove to a depth of ~95 feet along the wall. Dropping in we first sighted a
Spotted Eagle Ray and were accompanied by Four Eyed Butterfly fish while on top
of the reef and also spotted a four plus foot Green Moray.
The Super Bowl – 80 ft
The super bowl reminded me of Cedral in Cozumel with coral heads separated by
narrow sandy channels and is also around the same depth with a bottom at 80 or
so feet and the top of the reef at 50 some. At this site we saw the only shark
of the weekend and the only shark that others had seen in several days of
diving.
The Hole in the Wall – 135 ft
The hole in the wall starts at 125 feet and exits about 90 feet. This is a
nice dive and an easy swim thru that needn’t worry anyone. This is where one
of the group spotted a rock fish and we saw a couple of nice sized eels here to.
The Chimney – 75 ft
This was a really nice drive and was typical of the second dives in depth and
bottom. But, we were treated to a school of Barracuda and a Hawks Bill turtle
that Angel swears never saw me as I had to get out of its way or I would have
been run into. No kidding, it came within a very few inches.
In summary, Puerto Rico offers some excellent opportunities for wall and
reef diving and Angel has stated his intention to explore more dive sites west
of Parguera since he now has a craft that can reach them quickly. I also
can’t wait to check out the west coast around Mayaguez and Aguadilla
as I was told that the reefs and water there are beautiful as well. So, bring
the dive gear and come and explore a fascinating island with much to do and see
both above and beneath the sea.
more info about Black Wall including maps, reviews, and ratings...