The Maldives, an island nation south of India, is best known among divers for abundant pelagic life, from whale sharks and oceanic mantas to Napoleon wrasse and hammerheads.
It all started in 1918 with the first film to feature underwater footage: Fred William Stephenson's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Ever since, Hollywood has headed to the clear blue waters of the Bahamas to shoot underwater scenes for three simple reasons: its proximity to the U.S., excellent visibility, and exceptional value.
Like many other locations that still bear the reminders of film sets, Nassau is no different, except that the sets are underwater. Today, divers can submerge on wrecks like the Tears of Allah from James Bond's 'Never Say Never Again' and the Vulcan Bomber from 'Thunderball'. The Cessna plane that crash-landed in Jaws IV now rests permanently on the sea floor. You can view the cockpit of the DC3 plane wreck from Into the Blue. If you're taking the Underwater Hollywood backlot tour with Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas, you can get your picture taken at your favorite film site and hear some of the behind-the-scenes stories.
And, with the resident marine population that also frequents these film sets, you never know who you might see there.
Dive Underwater Hollywood today with Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas. Visit StuartCove.com for more information.
The dive packages are all-inclusive and provide dive equipment, boat dives, meals and lodging, and local transportation in and around Panama City.
In the last ten years the diving world has blossomed, in a way even its ambitious pioneer Jacques Cousteau might not have predicted.
Draped in a vibrant mix of soft corals and sponges, patrolled by an array of pelagic predators, home to some fish species found nowhere else on earth, and the resting place of world-class wrecks, the reefs and pinnacles of the Red Sea are the stuff of legend.
Why did UNESCO choose Cocos Island National Park as a World Heritage Site? It is the only island in the tropical eastern Pacific, and it provides critical marine habitats — deep waters pumped with nutrients from life-giving currents — for large pelagic fish, including the planet’s biggest — the whale shark — as well as schools of hammerhead sharks, yellowfin tuna and manta rays.
Nearest Point is a diverse, kaleidoscopic reef.
Drifting in the cobalt blue waters of Molasses Reef a diver notices something odd: On the underside of the Cheeca View (the dive boat he'd just been relaxing on), the letters HD had been painted in white on either side of the hull.
Sand Dollar Resort, located on Bonaire’s west coast, has the site for your next marine life mixer: Bari Reef.