May 2007

Destinations

||||| |---|---|---|---| | Australia Bahamas Baja, Mexico Bay Islands Belize Bermuda Bonaire| British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Costa Rica Cozumel Cancun & Riviera Maya Curaçao Dominica| Eastern Caribbean Fiji Florida Keys Galapagos Hawaii Indonesia Micronesia| North Carolina Papua New Guinea Puerto Rico Tahiti, French Polynesia Tobago Turks & Caicos U.S. Virgin Islands|

Eastern Caribbean

|| |---| | | | Photo by Bill Harrigan| Why go? The islands of the Lesser Antilles hem in the Caribbean's eastern edge. Although some of these islands are better known in sailing and beach-going circles than in the dive community, all can deliver a week of excitement-filled recreational diving.

How to dive it The islands offer a number of underwater highlights:

• Barbados: Situated on the outer edge of the island chain, Barbados's claim to fame is the 360-foot Stavronikita, among the Caribbean's best and biggest wrecks.

• Grenada: The "Spice Island" of Grenada offers warm, clear water, beautiful reefs, great marine life and amazing wrecks. You can opt for land-based diving or a live-aboard.

• Saba: Saba's shallow reef and open-ocean pinnacles are protected by a marine park. Most sites are along Saba's lee. You can dive Saba by live-aboard or with land-based operations.

• St. Vincent and the Grenadines: The islands are most popular among underwater photographers with a penchant for small critter portraits because St. Vincent is known as the "muck-diving capital of the Caribbean." That's something of a misnomer, however, because the visibility can top 100 feet.

• St. Lucia: Diving is focused on shallow reefs and drift dives in and around Soufriere. Don't Miss Barbados's Crop Over Festival. Crop Over, a five-week summer festival (usually in July and August; check www.barbados.org for an updated schedule) is Barbados's most popular and colorful festival. This celebration marks the culmination of another successful sugar cane harvest.

Good To Know

Weather: Temps range between 70 and 90 degrees.

Average Water Temp: The high 70 and low 80s year-round

Average Visibility: Varies from 25 to 150 feet.

Travel Savvy: A passport is required. There are nonstop flights to Grenada (GND) and St. Lucia (UVF) from the U.S. All other islands are reached via connecting flights. J Departure taxes: From $12 to $30.

Destination Links: www.barbados.org; www.grenadagrenadines.com; www.sabatourism.com; www.stlucia.org; www.svgtourism.com.

Best Dives

|| |---| | | | Photo by Steve Simonsen| Stavronikita. What To Expect: One of the most impressive shipwrecks in the Caribbean, this 360-foot Greek freighter sits upright in 140 feet of water off Barbados. The big ship is adorned with sponges and corals, inhabited by sergeant majors, tangs and blue chromis, and frequently visited by barracudas and turtles.

Bianca C. What To Expect: Found off Grenada, this 600-foot cruise ship is the largest wreck in the Caribbean. While it rests at 160 feet, you can dive most of its decks without going below 120. Look for eagle rays, turtles and barracuda. Because of the depth and a frequently powerful current, this site is for advanced divers only.

Diamond Rock. What To Expect: This pinnacle off Saba rises dramatically from the sea, and above water it is covered with guano, causing it to sparkle like a diamond in the sunlight. Start your dive at the bottom, where you can find stingrays and flying gurnards in the sand at 80 feet. Then circle your way up, keeping an eye out for sharks.

Tent Reef Wall. What To Expect: Search the many ledges and overhangs on this colorful wall off Saba to find a wide variety of reef fish. Start your dive at 80 feet and then ascend to 50 feet for your swim back to the boat to get a whole new look at this multilevel site.

Orca Point. What To Expect: This rock-strewn pinnacle juts from the water's surface off St. Vincent. Underwater, the spire reveals scattered boulders and macro subjects disguised among the bedrock: invisible shrimp, squat anemone shrimp and sunspot anemone shrimp, neck crabs, blackhead blennies, decorator crabs, three-spotted scorpionfish and sharptail eels.

Anchor Reef. What To Expect: A beautiful site for a day or night dive, St. Vincent's Anchor Reef is known for its abundance of critters, including seahorses, octopuses, squid and a variety of eels.

Lesleen M. What To Expect: Sunk as an artificial reef in 1986 off St. Lucia, this 165-foot freighter sits upright in 65 feet of water. The wreck is covered in hard and soft corals and is home to frogfish, seahorses and blackbar soldierfish.

Fiji

|| |---| | | | Photo by Rod Klein| Why go? The island chain's barrier reefs and coral atolls support over 400 species of hard and soft corals, gobs of invertebrate life and some of the richest and most photogenic fish life in the world. Sharks and rays are common at some advanced dive sites.

How to dive it With more than 320 islands to choose from here, divers never run out of options. You can dive swatches of this vast island nation with land-based operators, but if you want to see more, booking a trip on a live-aboard is the best way to go. The largest island of Viti Levu offers easy access to the widest range of sites (including Beqa Lagoon and the high-octane shark encounters off Pacific Harbour) and has the most extensive diving infrastructure. The next largest islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni feature otherworldly walls carpeted by soft corals. And the smaller islands of the Yasawas, the Lau Group, the Mamanucas, the Lomaivitis and Kadavu each have a distinct underwater appeal. Acres of plate and staghorn corals have colonized the picture-perfect Yasawas and Mamanucas. The Great Astrolabe Reef of Kadavu is a top spot for big animal encounters.

Don't Miss Whitewater Kayaking. There is no better way to spend a nondive day than whitewater kayaking the Class II-III Luva River, on Viti Levu. The daylong trip begins in the breathtaking Namosi highlands, with a village visit and traditional kava ceremony. Then, for some six miles downriver, kayakers weave in and out of rock mazes and tumble over rapids, past cascading waterfalls and impossibly beautiful vistas.

Good To Know

Weather: Temps are in the low 80s, though dip to the mid-70s from May to October. The best conditions occur from March to December when the weather is cooler and drier.

Average Water Temp: The mid-70s in cool months (May to October) to the mid-80s in January and February.

Average Visibility: Triple-digit vis most of the year; lower during the December-to-March rainy season.

Travel Savvy: A passport is required. Nonstop flights to Nadi (NAN) originate in Los Angeles. The departure tax is FJ$30, payable in Fijian currency.

Destination Links: www.bulafiji.com.

Best Dives

Great White Wall. What To Expect: This sheer wall in Somosomo Strait drops to 250 feet and is literally covered in white soft corals.

E-6. What To Expect: A pinnacle that rises to the surface from a depth of 3,000 feet off Wakaya Island. Look for hammerhead and white-tip sharks.

Magic Mountain. What To Expect: Off Namena, this coral spire rises from the bottom at 85 feet and reaches to within 10 feet of the surface. At 40 feet, a tunnel cuts through the coral tower.

Naingoro Pass. What To Expect: Drift dive this passage through Kadavu's Great Astrolabe Reef for a good chance of spotting big animals such as hammerhead sharks.

The W. What To Expect: This site off the Mamanuca Islands is named for the shape of the reef when viewed from above. Chevron barracuda schools and white-tip sharks are found on the periphery.

Side Streets. What To Expect: Coral bommies and overhangs laced with tunnels and caves in Beqa Lagoon. You'll find huge sea fans and feather stars as well as lionfish.

Purple Wall. What To Expect: Off Taveuni, this wall drops from 30 to 80 feet, covered in purple soft corals. Look for Moorish idols and pennant bannerfish.

Florida Keys

|| |---| | | | Photo by Stephen Frink| Why go? Starting just an hour south of Miami and stretching 200 miles out into the open Gulf of Mexico, the Keys is a down-to-earth tropical destination that's a scuba diving classic. Load up the family truckster and make tracks to the Florida Keys to discover the Lower 48's best coral reefs and arguably the greatest collection of wrecks this side of Truk Lagoon.

How to dive it Key Largo is a dive mecca. The underwater offerings include easily accessible reefs and a multitude of wrecks, including the 510-foot Spiegel Grove. The Tavernier and Islamorada area is extraordinary for the vast populations of fish found on its reefs. Highlights include nurse sharks, Bermuda chub and sergeant majors. In the Middle Keys, Marathon offers many dive sites on shallow, fish-packed reefs and a handful of wrecks, including the Thunderbolt. The laid-back Lower Keys, including Big Pine, Ramrod and Cudjoe keys, feature diving that ranges from sunlit spur-and-groove reefs and patch reefs, plus the Aldolphus Busch Sr. Historic Key West is the best place to go for nightlife in the Keys. Divers explore wrecks and reefs that shelter fish and lobsters. For deeper reef dives, nothing beats the remote Dry Tortugas, pristine islands 70 miles west of Key West and accessible only by boat or seaplane.

Don't Miss Penetration Wreck Diving. The Keys are an ideal location to get your wreck diving certification, as this is a wreck divers' paradise. The more advanced penetration dives include the mammoth Spiegel Grove and the Adolphus Busch Sr.

Good To Know

Weather: Mild year-round with hot, humid summers and mid-winter lows in the 50s to 60s.

Average Water Temp: High 70s to low 80s in summer; low 70s in winter.

Average Vis: Typically 40 to 75 feet, with 100 feet on calm days; wind and waves can reduce vis dramatically.

Travel Savvy: Drive the whole Overseas Highway for an ideal introduction to the Keys. You can fly into Miami or Key West and drive the length of the highway from either direction.

Destination Links: www.fla-keys.com.

Best Dives

Spiegel Grove. What To Expect: This monstrous 510-foot-long vessel off Key Largo was lying on its side until July 2005, when Hurricane Dennis rocked it upright, onto its keel. Expect loads of marine life.

Duane. What To Expect: The sister ship to the Bibb, the Duane sits upright in 50 to 125 feet of water off Key Largo.

Alligator Reef. What To Expect: This reef in 12 to 60 feet of water off Islamorada features healthy brain coral and a wide variety of tropicals.

Looe Key (East End). What To Expect: Parallel limestone ridges form the reef, built from coral calcium deposits over thousands of years. The reef is only 10 to 35 feet deep.

Adolphus Busch Sr. What To Expect: A fish-filled wheelhouse is at 50 feet, and a mast and anchor windlass rise from the foredeck. Max depth at this Looe Key site is 105 feet,.

The Arch. What To Expect: Located on the outer reef of Key West's Western Sambo, the Arch features healthy stands of barrel sponges and a profusion of reef fish like blue tangs. Look for sleeping nurse sharks under ledges.

Galapagos

|| |---| | | | Photo by Jesse Cancelmo| Why go? The Galapagos islands are the stuff of legend, and for good reason. Sitting atop a volcanic platform surrounded by water at least 7,000 feet deep, hundreds of miles from the mainland, the islands are washed by major oceanic currents that converge here. The commingling of warm and cold ocean water attracts more than 300 species of fish, including massive schools of really big fish--hammerhead sharks, manta and eagle rays, Galapagos sharks.

How to dive it While there are land-based dive operators in the Galapagos, most divers choose live-aboard dive boats as they cover the most ground. Most live-aboards travel after dinner, allowing you to wake up at a new anchorage almost every day. Each island provides several dive sites and unique experiences. The diving here is not for everyone. The conditions can be iffy: The water is cool and often murky, the currents and surge can be unpredictable. But once you've encountered what the archipelago has to offer, you'll know one thing for sure: This is one of the most exciting advanced dive destinations in the world.

Don't Miss Topside Excursions. Shore excursions and walking tours are an integral part of the Galapagos experience. Puerto Espinosa on Fernandina Island is a good place to see marine iguanas.

Good To Know

Weather: Average temps in the low 70s.

Average Water Temp: Temps can be warmer on the surface, but drop to the 50s at depth.

Average Visibility: Vis averages 75 feet, but can range from a few feet to more than 100, depending on conditions.

Travel Savvy: A passport is required. You'll fly to either Quito (UIO) or Guayaquil (GYE), then as a group to the Galapagos. There is a $100 entry fee to visit the Galapagos National Park. The departure tax is $31.60.

Destination Links: www.galapagos.org, www.gct.org, www.darwinfoundation.org.

Best Dives

Darwin Island. What To Expect: The northernmost island in the archipelago, Darwin offers a natural viewing platform in 60 feet of water on the ocean side of the arch where you can see hammerheads.

Wolf Island. What To Expect: Very strong currents attract large schools of hammerheads, sometimes 300 to 500 at a time.

Isabela Island. What To Expect: The deep anchorage of Tagus Cove on the western side offers the best spot to find endemic batfish and large species of starfish.

Bartolome Island. What To Expect: This is one of the few places in the archipelago where you can swim with Galapagos penguins.

Cousins Rock. What To Expect: Broad lava shelves are aligned in staircase fashion starting at 15 feet and eventually plateauing at 150. Sea lions congregate here to feast on enormous schools of endemic salemas.

North Seymour and North Seymour Channel. What To Expect: If the current is running, you'll see lots of white-tip reef sharks and schools of jacks in the thousands.

Gordon Rocks. What To Expect: Hammerhead and white-tip sharks, as well as eagle and golden rays.

Hawaii

|| |---| | | | Photo by James Watt| | | | | | Photo by Masa Ushioda| Why go? It's one of the planet's most beautiful and exotic island chains, and luckily for American divers, it's a destination without language barriers, passport requirements and currency exchange. The Aloha State offers a unique reef structure punctuated by lava formations and tubes and marine creatures found nowhere else on earth.

How to dive it More than 100 dive operators have set up shop on Hawaii's major islands: Maui, Oahu, the Big Island and Kauai. Off the Big Island, most of the diving takes place along the Kona Coast, on the west side, and most operations are based in the town of Kailua-Kona. Small and uncrowded, Kauai offers good diving off its southern coast, and is a departure point for diving neighboring, uninhabited Niihau. The greater Maui area actually includes Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe, and dive operators visit all but Kahoolawe on a regular basis. Dive boats depart Lahaina to Lanai daily, and when the weather's calm, Molokai. Maalaea Harbor and Kihei are the jumping-off points for southern Maui and Molokini Crater. Winds pick up in the afternoon, so dive charters tend to depart early to take advantage of flat water. Most Oahu dive operators are clustered around Honolulu, with others scattered along the North Shore. Most offer hotel pick-ups, so be prepared to meet the dive van in the lobby. Most dive sites are seasonal, with most winter diving taking place on the south and west sides of Oahu, and summer providing a window to dive the North Shore.

Don't Miss Helicopter Tours. The only way to explore the verdant peaks and valleys of an entire island in an hour or two is by helicopter. Oahu, the Big Island, Maui and Kauai all offer helicopter tours, but Kauai is Hollywood's favorite, and Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Gilligan's Island were all filmed here.

Good To Know

Weather: Temperatures vary little year-round, averaging from the high 60s to the mid-80s. The rainy season runs from November to March.

Average Water Temp: Mid- to high 70s in winter and spring; low 80s in summer and fall.

Average Visibility: Varies from island to island, but tends to be excellent, often exceeding 100 feet.

Travel Savvy: The main Hawaii airport codes are Honolulu, Oahu (HNL); Hilo, Hawaii (ITO); Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (KOA); Lihue, Kauai (LIH); and Kahului, Maui (OGG). The islands are served by four inter-island airlines. You'll most likely have to recheck your luggage before catching a connecting flight.

Destination Links: www.gohawaii.com.

Best Dives

Makaha Caverns. What To Expect: An open-ended lava tube forms a V about 100 yards from Oahu's shore. Dense schools of soldierfish, Hawaiian bigeyes and squirrelfish are found here.

YO-257. What To Expect: Southern Oahu is a wreck lover's paradise, including the San Pedro, the Mahi and the 180-foot oil tanker YO-257. Large access holes make this wreck easy to penetrate.

The Mahi. What To Expect: In 95 feet of water off Oahu, this 165-foot-long ship has 24 years' worth of sponge and coral growth, including snowflake and cup corals. Hawaiian stingrays and eagle rays cruise the surrounding area.

Rainbow Reef. What To Expect: A fish-filled dive site at Oahu's Ala Moana Beach Park where you can get close to elusive fish that are normally skittish, but are used to getting handouts here.

Molokini Crater. What To Expect: Maalaea Harbor and Kihei on Maui are the jumping-off points for Molokini Crater. The back side of Molokini is one of the world's premier wall dives.

Turtle Pinnacle. What To Expect: This site off the Big Island is favored by green sea turtles that rest on the rubble bottom.

Brennecke's Ledges. What To Expect: Located off Kauai, this large lava shelf features a wall that drops to 90 feet. Peer under overhangs to examine brilliant orange cup corals.

Indonesia

|| |---| | | | Photo by Stephen Frink| | | | | | Photo by James Watt| Why go? There are 13,000 reasons--and as many islands--to dive this vast archipelago spread out across some of the most diverse marine biosystems on the planet.

How to dive it You can experience diving Indonesia from a live-aboard or with a land-based operator. The Wakatobi archipelago in remote southeast Sulawesi offers lush reefs teeming with marine creatures, walls, seamounts and wrecks. Scattered over the transparent seas of western Papua Province, the Raja Ampat Islands offer marine life so profuse that each dive is better than the last. Lembeh Strait, known as the birthplace of "muck diving," beckons macro photographers from all over the planet with the promise of a high concentration of bizarre creatures.

Don't Miss Komodo Dragon Encounter. Komodo dragons grow up to 10 feet long and roam the Wallacea region of Indonesia. These modern-day dinosaurs are under the protection of the Komodo National Park.

Good To Know

Weather: Temps are in the low 80s most of the year, though drop to the mid-70s from May to October. The best conditions occur from March to December when the weather is cooler and drier than it is in January and February.

Average Water Temp: Temps peak in the high 70s to low 80s November through March.

Average Visibility: 80 feet.

Travel Savvy: A passport is required. There are no nonstop flights from the U.S. A flight from Los Angeles to Singapore normally takes about 18 hours. Shorter hops will take you to locations throughout the archipelago. The departure tax varies from $8 to $12, depending on the airport.

Destination Links: www.indonesia-tourism.com.

Best Dives

Inka's Palette. What To Expect: A gentle slope off Wakatobi that plummets into the depths with multiple overhangs adorned by large tube sponges, huge leather corals, and a colorful palette of hard and soft corals.

Batanta. What To Expect: Located in the famed Raja Ampats, this site features lush reefs studded with yard-long giant clams. The reefs begin just below the surface and extend well past 100 feet. The fish life is most abundant at shallow depths, including several varieties of rarely seen juvenile fish that take refuge around Cape Kri.

|| |---| | | | Photo by Rod Klein| Lembeh Strait. What To Expect: Sulawesi Island's Lembeh Strait is renowned for muck diving that offers a view of the weird and wonderful world of macro life. Nudibranchs, pygmy and thorny seahorses, devilfish, frogfish and leaf fish are common sights along the patch reef and in the muck of the sloping bottom. Popular sites here include Sahaong, Batu Mandi, and Teluk Kambahu 1 and 2.

Cannibal Rock. What To Expect: This site in Komodo National Park is a big coral ridge in the Flores Islands that rises from the seafloor at 120 feet, and seems to pack more marine life and biodiversity than some entire island nations. The fast currents and nutrient-rich upwellings in the park attract the big fish--whale sharks and mantas. The site, south of Rinca Island, also features swim-throughs, caverns and ledges for divers to explore. Forests of anemones and giant sea fans sway in the currents, while a rogue's gallery of bizarre marine life shelter's in the site's nooks and crannies. Among the creatures you'll find: blue-ring octopus, ghost pipefish, yellow-ribbon sweetlips and gold-stripe fusiliers.

Waiti Ridge. What To Expect: A series of seamounts that rise from the depths of Wakatobi. A garden of soft corals, hydroids, sea squirts and gorgonians sprout from the edges of the seamounts, while plate corals dominate the top of the ridge. Schools of pyramid butterflyfish swim around the pinnacles and fusiliers swirl above the reef.

Micronesia

|| |---| | | | Photo by Mike Veitch| | | | | | Photo by Mike Veitch| Why go? Thousands of tiny islands--including Palau, Yap, Truk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, the Marshall Islands, Guam, Rota, Saipan--sprinkled across 7.5 million square miles of the Western Pacific offer endless diving opportunities: reefs, wrecks, walls, drift dives, shore dives.

How to dive it The boat rides to many of Palau's top dive sites pass through the iconic Rock Islands, a spectacular journey in itself. Yap has a reputation as the world's most consistent destination for manta sightings, but also offers shark encounters, caverns and walls. Truk Lagoon has the greatest concentration of diveable shipwrecks on earth, at least 70 in the lagoon alone. Pohnpei offers drift diving at drop-offs outside passes along its barrier reef. The reefs of Kosrae are superb, of a quality you'd expect when diving a lush and remote island. The scattered dry islets and atolls of the Marshall Islands feature sites that are seldom dived as well as better-known sites like Kwajalein Atoll. As the gateway to Micronesia, Guam is often overlooked by divers, but shouldn't be; it's got great shore diving concentrated around Agat Bay and Apra Harbor. The Northern Marianas--Rota and Saipan--are known for shore diving, crystal-clear water and hard coral gardens.

Don't Miss Kayak Adventures. Since Micronesia consists of countless secluded islands, many of which are uninhabited, the best (and often only) way to visit them is by kayak. If you've got the time, consider a weeklong kayaking trip around the turquoise waters of Palau's mushroom-shaped Rock Islands, where you can dive, snorkel, and kayak by day and camp on the islands' white sand beaches by night.

Good To Know

Weather: Daytime temps in the mid- to high 80s year-round.

Average Water Temp: High 70s to mid-80s.

Average Visibility: More than 100 feet of vis off Palau, and Pohnpei and Kosrae's outer reefs and on Yap's wall dives. Vis can be slightly lower in Truk Lagoon.

Travel Savvy: A passport is required. Flights connect through Guam or Hawaii. Departure taxes range from $10 to $20.

Destination Links: www.visit-fsm.org; www.visit-palau.com; www.visityap.com; www.visitguam.com; www.visit-chuuk.com; www.visit-kosrae.com.

Best Dives

Blue Corner. What To Expect: Clip one end of a reef hook on your BC and the other end on the reef off the southwest corner of Palau's barrier reef to watch pelagics like black-tip reef sharks and barracudas and schools of horse-eye jacks whiz by.

Big Drop-Off. What To Expect: This sheer cut off Palau, also called Ngemelis Wall, starts in shallow water and then falls off into the abyss. The top of the wall is cloaked in anemones and large populations of reef fish like sergeant majors, parrotfish and chromis.

Miil and Gofnuw channels. What To Expect: The manta encounters at these sites put Yap on the dive map. Encounters depend on the season, with operators making the trip to Gofnuw in the summer and fall and to Miil from November to May.

Fujikawa Maru. What To Expect: This upright 437-foot aircraft ferry is probably Truk's most popular dive, both during the day and at night. The wreck is covered in soft corals.

Heian Maru. What To Expect: The largest wreck discovered in Truk Lagoon, the Heian Maru lies on its starboard side at 110 feet; the holds are from 60 to 80 feet.

Toawoaioai Pass. What To Expect: This large pass at Pohnpei's Ahnd Atoll has challenging tides that often bring sailfish and Pacific blue marlin.

Hiroshi Point. What To Expect: Off Kosrae, a gently tumbling wall packed with hard corals, and visited by plenty of trevally, snapper and barracudas.

Apra Harbor. What To Expect: Guam's Apra Harbor offers wrecks from both World Wars. The German-built Russian-operated SMS Cormoran and the Japanese Tokai Maru lie atop one another in the bay.

Shoun Maru. What To Expect: This 400-foot Japanese cargo boat was sunk by the Americans during World War II, and is now resting on the 120-foot bottom off Rota.

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