What is your favorite dive?

[Cshradr7]

I've been reading this forum and came up with an idea that i think is pretty good that will serve as a reference to all of us divers. What if we compile a list of everyones favorite dives and their locations? I think that we could get a pretty nice list going. I'll start:

Location Dive
Roatan, Honduras Mary's Place

 

[puffer21]

you should also write in what you saw

 

[Cshradr7]

Very good idea.

Roatan honduras to start is one of the most unique places top side that i have been to in the world. Roatan is completely undeveloped other than a couple of resorts. The island people live in little corragated shacks. This is truely a third world county. Anyways, Mary's Place is a dive where you drop down to about 110 feet and you swim through numberous crevices in the coral. In the dive, you have a wall on each side of you, about 4 feet of total room between the two, and the coral extends all the way from 110ft up to about 60 feet...absolutly amazing. I took video of the entire dive with a sony DCR HC40 camcorder inside of an ikelite housing with prowatt lights (brand new lights that use the same HID technology that is used in newer car headlights) The video is pretty amazing. I dove there last march but havent edited the video yet, possibly ill figure out a way to post some clips up here, if you have any idea about how, let me know

 

[JohnnyW]

The Red Sea. Two very good places to set out from are either Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt (Sinai Peninsula) or Eilat, Israel.
There are hundreds of different dive sites and many dive companies in each of these towns to take to out there. The Red Sea offers some of the clearest water that I have ever dove in.
Sites range from reefs, caves, and caverns; to sunken WW2 transport ship, sunken submarine; to coral fields.
The reef, corals, and fish are all strictly protected by the goverment there to keep divers from damaging anything. This helps to keep everything intact for years to come.
This is where I learned a lot more about diving and made a great deal of dives. If you can afford the trip, it is well worth it. I was lucky enough to have the Army pay for my 1 year stay in Egypt, so the diving was the only part at my cost. I still have my dive logs and videos around here somewhere.
Lots of sea turtles, hammerheads, whitetip reef sharks, blacktips, rays (many different species), triggers, etc.

 

[puffer21]

[welcome]
JohnneyW

 

[billsreef]

Cayman Islands is my favorite, with Little Cayman's Bloody Bay Wall being the best. Sheer drop offs, with some sections being undercut in a way that makes for a very dramatic dive

 

[thor32766]

My place is Gitmo Bay, Cuba. I grew up on the base there and the diving is unreal. Its untouched there by gangs of tourist.

 

[snorvich]

It depends on for what. For color, unquestionably Fiji. For unusual animals, Batangas, Phillippines, Lembeh strait in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, Milne Bay Papua New Guinea. For large animals, Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, northern Maldives.

 

[n8rad]

molokini crater, Maui Hawaii. Manta rays, garden eels, tons of yellow tangs, moorish idols and various wrasses. 1st Cathedral Lanai Hawaii. White tip reef sharks, and gray sharks at both locaitions, also tons of endangered green sea turtles. Got about a foot away from one just chilling on some rock.

 

[ZippyBoy]

French Cay in the Turks and Caicos for deep walls. Great for large pelagics like sharks (predominately reef and black tip but you get the occassional hammerhead) and rays (spotted eagle, southern, yellow and manta). Whales in the winter. Nice part about the walls is they are out of the way of the typical hurricane path so the reefs are in better condition than many Caribbean sites.

If you like the little stuff, the same dive sites (both on the wall and on top of the wall) also have perenial favorites like frogfish, baby box fish, etc, etc, etc.

 

[acarson19]

I went diving on the North Wall, Cayman Islands, I can't remember the name of the site now, and I saw a school of 4 black tip reef sharks, a nurse shark, a lesser hammer head, a greater hammer head, white tip reef sharks all on the same dive!


A post above reminded me of a dive on Bloody Bay Wall in Little Cayman, where my sister and I got to see a Manta Ray. It was so huge and the only time I've ever seen one!

Oh and I love any dive when the silversides are in the area. I absolutely love going into caverns full of silversides and tarpon. So cool.

Unfortunately the only diving I've done over the past couple years in a yucky reservior with <1 ft vis. so I haven't seen anything cool in a long time! But I'm going to Cayman again in Jan. and my husband is getting certified. I can't wait!

Thanks for starting this thread! I forgot how much I enjoy diving and I forgot about all the neat critters I've seen!

 

[Ebmorri]

My 5th dive was a Manta night dive off a boat in surge near Kona, HI. Over all didn’t see much of anything except the huge Mantas swimming around us and one coming over me from the back and rubbing the top of my head. Just kind of cool seeing them swimming effortlessly.

 

[gregmoeck]

I thought mary's place was a good dive. Rather strange entrance and then up a crack. I thought the crack itself seemed boring but once ontop of the crack it was amazing. The coral and life was superb. I think diving in Roatan is superb, just void of fish.

The best diving I remember is cayman dive lodge, too bad it's long gone due to hurracaine.

 

[GMFett]

The Cathedral in Hawaii- It is a 110 foot dive down a lava tube that opens up into a large room in the lava with ambient blue lighting. Filled with wildlife....

 

[RELAD]

I would have to say Gitmo Bay, Cuba.. I was TDY there and love doing wall dives from the beach....

 

[Str8baller]

So far iv been diving in St Thomas, the Caymans, and Bhamamas. I feel that any dive is pure bliss, but if i had to choose it would have to be the Caymans, the drop offs and fish are spectacular!

 

[billsreef]

Str8baller

[welcome]

 

[Kengar]

Some of the diving off Komodo (Peter Hughes Bali/Komodo liveaboard) is the most intensely lush in hard coral growth you will ever see. Was there last year.

 

[chadhender]

The Flower Gardens 110 mile off the Texas coast is quite amazing. What makes it even better is the water at the beachs in texas is so muddy and it is clear there.

 

[ryan115]

Havent been many places yet... But Lighthouse Atoll off of Belize was incredible. The blue hole was ok, but it was the amazing wall dives that we made that blew me away. In the 4 days of diving we saw 120+ diffent species of fish, corals, turtles, rays, eels, and reef inverts. I hated coming back to diving in the states after that.