Diving done and to do.

So if you know me, then you know I like my underwater adventures. And really in the great scheme of things, if it makes me happy then why not do it?
When it comes to diving though I'm just a tad picky in the quality of water that I'm in. This apparently means to some other divers that I'm not hard core.....who cares? I've got nothing to prove to anyone but myself, that's what I think.

For example, I've dived in Cuba of the Varadero peninsular coastline. I call it a peninsular but it's totally man made for the tourists and the land part of the experience was nothing to write home about. Others might have had a different experience but I don't consider it 'getting away from it all' to be swamped by drunken tourists, shouting and making fools of themselves. Still, I digress. The underwater side of Cuba (again I stress, where I was) was a bit of a let down. Admittedly it was a few years ago now, and things may have recovered somewhat, but the main image that gets stuck in my head was the great drifts of dead corals and bleached white areas of crumbling and dieing sponges. Quite frankly apart from the mangrove forests with the fish nurseries, there wasn't much in the way of dynamic life. A classic case of environmental ignorance and a lack of tourist management.


I've been to Cyprus and dived the most famous of Mediterranean harbor wrecks the Zenobia (named after the famous and infamous Queen of the Palmyra dynasty) with it's spookily conserved cargo it looks like it sank only days or weeks ago. You get flash backs to the scene in The Abyss (film, aliens, underwater, diving etc) where the dead sailors swing out tangled in wires and sea spiders. It's shivers ahoy swimming through the central corridors of that wreck. But you come out amazed and completely hyped up on adrenalin. Best feeling in the world.

The Bahamas is a contrast in Diving styles. For the great majority of my three and a bit months I was truly unimpressed with the shallow reefs with juvenile fish and sea turtles. After 50 odd dives of mostly the same stuff I was left wanting. Then along came my underwater savior in the form of Neal Watson instructor extraordinaire who for a too limited amount of time took me to see some of the most amazing sights. We dived of the tongue of the ocean, took a bounce into the abyss and saw sharks and turtles and amazing coral. I'll be forever great-full for him making it a trip to remember. Going one better I then went out to Eleuthera, an Island in the Bahamas of amazing natural beauty did more great stuff and got photographed by professional photographer Michael Lawrence swimming by the great fish cage. Which should be checked out by all of you A.S.A.P if not to marvel at me (humble aren't I?) then because the man has some serious talent in all things photographical!!

So for the Bahamas those are my too hints: Eleuthera and diving with Neal and looking up the great and fabulous Michael Lawrence at www.lawrenceimages.com
Michael if you're reading this I appologise, you're about to get inundated with sales requests!!

And now we come to my favorite....EGYPT!!
Amazing water, cheaper dive lessons- where do you think I learned?- and really nice people. If you can get over the predisposition of both the entire population of Russia and Germany to go there every main holiday then this is the place for you. In fact the sheer amount of sea life has now quite ruined me for most other oceans. Even SriLanka couldn't compare favorably let alone Cuba. So disregarding the predictable attack of the pharaoh's revenge, regular as clockwork, in more ways than one. This is the place to go for those in Europe. In a matter of hours, and only a few time zones you have the perfect sand, sea and only a Slightly dodgy stomach!