Between June 1 and June 6, my father and I enjoyed Grand Cayman’s charms. During our well-deserved vacation, Don Foster’s dive operation took us out as we explored the reefs and the marine life off the western and northwestern edges of the island. Ultimately, we managed to squeeze in a dozen dives, all of which were at least “very good,” and some of which were “spectacular.” Topside, we did some exploring, too.
Thailand is blessed with many world class diving sites - and there’s so many of them, it can get a bit bewildering about where to go. The Tourist Authority Of Thailand has a very good summary of the different sites on a single webpage, with links out to separate pages on each of the different major dive destinations. It’s well presented, with maps and some beautiful photos to get you in the mood for what you’ll see. There’s also practical info on how to get to each destination too.
Thailand Dive Sites At A Glance - divehappy.com: Scuba Diving In Thailand and South East Asia
John Bantin of Divernet put together an interesting and amusing list of 99 reasons to dive the Maldives this year….as if you even needed one reason. Nevertheless, the list include such things as the British Loyalty, Gilis, Mushimashma, Oriental Sweetlips, Hukuruelhi Kandhu, finolhus, and many, many more intriguing attractions. If you don’t know what these words mean, then you definitely need to check out the piece.
The 36-year-old Leander-class frigate was sunk off Island Bay last November amidst a storm of protest that it would break up and bits would be washed ashore.However, professional divers said today the ship was an amazing dive and was rated as one of the best in the world, proving the critics wrong.
Proving that scuba divers will go anywhere that the diving is great, East Timor’s first tourists are scuba divers.
Simon Jeffery, 36, who has worked for Dive Timor Lorosae for three years leading guided dives and captaining their boat, waxes lyrical about the potential for diving in the young nation.
“Big tour organisers come out here and love the place — it’s world-class diving,” he says, comparing it to Bali and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
“The exciting thing about it is that it’s all virgin territory — there are virtually 1,000 — or 10,000 — dive sites out there that have never been dived before,” he enthuses.
“At traditional dive destinations like Thailand and Fiji now there’ll be 200 people at a site and you can’t see the fish.”
Good news and bad news in the same article.
The humpback population roaming the North Pacific, estimated at about 10,000, is believed to have been growing at annual rate of about 7 percent since the mid-1990s. And as more whales swim to Hawaii from icy feeding grounds off Alaska, Canada, Russia and Japan, boaters are navigating around some 1,000 calves born in Hawaiian waters each year.
“As long as the population continues to get bigger, it’s going to keep happening,” said Joseph Mobley, a professor at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu who researches whales.
It’s gotten a bad rap due to the recent violence but Bali is a beautiful place to dive.
Several friends of mine have told me about diving in Bali over the last few months, and the Liberty shipwreck continually crops up as a place to visit. You can walk in straight off the beach to go see the Liberty, and it’s a haven of marine life at whatever depth you decide to explore it. Besides the Liberty, there are numerous other sites to explore in the Tulamben area, and if you get very lucky, you might get to see the legendary Mola Mola, or sunfish.
An excellent piece from Dive Happy on diving the Similan Islands:
One of the reasons why diving the Similans is such a great experience is because there’s a natural sense of build up over the four days of the liveaboard . You start off in the Similan Islands proper, doing some easy reef dives that offer spectacular bommies like East Of Eden, which is so covered in fan and soft corals and alive with different fish species that it’s been regularly filmed and photographed by the likes of National Geographic. By the second day, you get to dive the more challenging big boulder sites like Elephant Head Rock and North Point, where truly huge rocks several storeys high have rolled together to create a labyrinth of swimthoughs and shelter for the fish. There’s something exhilarating about being at 20 metres passing over the top of one of these rocks - and then watch it drop away another 30 metres below you as you fly off the side. Turtles chewing on coral hide around them, and within the canyons formed by the rocks you can find clown triggerfish, probably my favourite fish of all.
DiveHappy has a good write-up on the best dive sites in Thailand. Worth checking out if you need a reason to drool this winter. 
Wonderful news from DiveHappy about the rebirth of Koh Phi Phi which had been devistated during the 2004 tsunami.
All during 2005 volunteers and locals put in thousands of hours of work cleaning up not only on land but underwater. Divers have cleared some 280 tonnes of debris from under the water and beaches returning Ko Phi Phi to an excellent diving opportunity.
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