worlds best diving
 

ok a year and half is whileb ut it doesnt hurt to research hoep me and my parents and sister are going to a reef. the were thinking of australia the great barier reef. Are there any other top place besides this?

I wa salso thinking

palau
Indonesia- kmoda national park
Fiji
Tonga
bora bora
Red sea -not sure how helathy te reefs are there

I wish I could to half of those places. I use the following for research:



[url=http://www.scubadiving.com/scuba/travel/]http://www.scubadiving.com/scuba/travel/[/URL]

This one is kind of like RC

[url=http://www.scubaboard.com/]http://www.scubaboard.com/[/URL]

I'd recommend "Mike Ball Dive Excursions" for a live aboard. My wife and I did it for the Great Barrier Reef and it was the best diving experience ever. The crew and the boat were awesome. According to the dive master, the best place he's ever been is Papua New Guinea.

It depends what you want to see, some places are for smaller reef animals, others for wrecks, etc.. I've heard really good things about Truk for the WWII wrecks for instance.

I've been to bora bora and the island is beautiful but the diving is only fair - Indonesia is pretty good anywhere - I've only been to Bali but indonesia in general is near the center of coral diversity - I am going to palau myself in the next year so I can't tell you how it is yet but it is supposed to be great - the red sea, at least from egypt appears to be a little unsafe at this point in history so I would avoid that with the family

Try to pick up the book "Dive Atlas of the World".

We had a great time in Philippines, here is the resort that we stayed at and it is world class diving.

[url]http://www.atlantishotel.com/puertogalera/resort/index.htm[/url]

alot of mico and macro life

Fiji was simply amazing, totally blew the cairns/GBR away, but my bio teacher who has been all over the world diving for the past 30 years says marshall islands is the absolute best he has been to, and with all the wrecks from the nuclear tests I really want to go!

diving
 

2 best I know of

Benqua island in Fiji
&
Papa New guinea

Both amazing and you will see animals that only exist there!

The funny thing about the best place to go diving is that once you go there, you find out that there's someplace better! ;)

If you are looking for pretty diving (soft corals, fish, good vis) then Fiji is a wonderful place. There are several live aboards and land based options. I can vouch for Naia, it's a great boat and you go places that you just can't reach from land based operations. I've also been to Cousteu's Resort. The property is pretty, the house reef is so so, but if you are up for longer boat rides, the diving improves. Beware of the mozzies here though.

If you are thinking of cashing in air miles and heading to Australia, the GBR is a great place. You really should do a liveaboard here in order to get away from the day divers out of Cairns. Mike Ball and the Nimrod are good choices. Good diving, fun critters and if you go soon, Minke whales are migrating!

If you are up for an adventure, try Exmouth and Ningaloo Reef. You'll be diving in the Indian Ocean about 500 miles north of Perth in Western Australia. It's a great place to see lots of hard corals, schools of fish, Mantas and Whalesharks.

If you and your family are experienced divers, then there are some really great places in Indonesia (Lembah Strait, Irian Jaya, Bali, Komodo, Banda Sea) as well as Thailand (Phi Phi, Andaman Sea).

You can combine diving with nature walks by visiting the Galapagos Islands. Diving is challenging, lots of currents. But... it is amazing.

If you want to stay closer to home, try Grand Cayman or Cayman Brac. Good walls, nice Caribbean diving.

Sigh... so many oceans.... so little time. :)

-Rob

lol yea im trying to get certified this summer.... I have seen some awesome pictures of komodo national park. I know the gbr is big but i heard its not as healthy as it once was is this true?

I think the GBR is still nice, but you have to be on a live aboard to truly appreciate it. The day boats out of Cairns and Townsville are too crowded. You and 30 of your freinds on one coral bommie.

Try Nimrod, Mike Ball, Peter Hughes or one of the other smaller live aboard dive boats. Some offer short 3 day trips, some offer 7-10 day trips.

If you go, venture north to the Coral Sea (northern GBR) and you will have some of the best diving in the world.... still.

-Rob

Ras Mohammed, Tiran, Dahab...all of these Red Sea locations have very healthy reefs and rates right up there with any diving local on earth.

I just got back from 6 days in Ras, Dahab and Tiran...unparalelled by any measure.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7319264#post7319264 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tpit1234 [/i]
[B]We had a great time in Philippines, here is the resort that we stayed at and it is world class diving.

[url]http://www.atlantishotel.com/puertogalera/resort/index.htm[/url]

alot of mico and macro life [/B][/QUOTE]

Puerto Galera has some decent dives.

But WORLD CLASS diving in the Philippines is without doubt Palawan, the southern tip.

visibility to like 10000000 feet, 80F water, dazzling reefs

I know it may sound crazy, i have been diving all over. My favorite place, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I spent 15 yrs there with my family on the base, and the reefs there are untouched! Unbelieveable still the best to me. That is bragging because not to many people can say they dove there in Gitmo.

Well, after 2000+ dives, I can assure you that there is no BEST place to dive. There are best places for a specific thing/attraction, however. For color, the best place is unquestionably Fiji although diving in the north of Papua New Guinea comes close. For unusual and bizarre animals, Indonesia is probably the best but Batangas in the Phillipinnes may exceeed that. For whale sharks, Ningaloo Reef is probably best but there are places in the Caribbean that may even exceed it. For sharks, north Papua New Guinea is probably best, however a couple of wrecks on the Great Barrier Reef may be equally good and even the Bahamas has a great reef shark experience. For Sea Dragons, unquestionably Kangaroo Island is best. Period. Previous posters have indicated that liveaboards are the way to go. They are correct. You get five dives per day at locations inaccessible to land based diving. Enjoy!

Make sure you dont forget about Belize. Also in the same area is Roatan. Its a small island owned by Honduras that was colonized by the british so the native language is English. I have a couple step cousins that live in Honduras and I have been told the diving there is amazing. They have many places that you can stay at that are all inclusive "dive" resorts. It is really cheap there. You can get a steak dinner and a few beers for about $4.

yeah dave i heard its awesome down there.

Honduras is one of the locations that has the potential for whale sharks and that is the Caribbean location I was referring to. Other than whale sharks, however, it is not a world class site. It is, like the Philippines, very inexpensive diving, however.

well i think the great barrier is the best in the world but in belize is some awsome snorkling. the best ive ever done there are huge reefs, like 2 inches below the water

Having dived the Great Barrier Reef, I can assure you that it is not even close to being the best. It is the largest for sure, and Belize is the second largest. The question was not biggest, it was best. As for snorkeling, Ningaloo Reef is probably considered the world's best.

Having had the privilege of diving both the GBR and Nigaloo... Ningaloo wins hands down. But the GBR is still nice.

The most unusual place we were diving recently was New Caledonia. It was exploratory diving on a live aboard. Amazing reefs, big animals, healthy reefs, amazing fish life. It helps when the French don't allow fishing in the local waters, and seize boats that stray too close. If I ever had a chance to go back, I'd be there in a minute!

-Rob

Yes, Ningaloo is world class especially during whale shark season. Could you tell me a bit more about New Caledonia? Which live aboard? How long? Is this color diving, critter diving, big animal diving, or a combination? Sounds a little bit like North Papua New Guinea which is superb. My one and only ORCA sighting.

wow now getting to see an orca in the wild would be awesome.

It was awesome. Actually there were three of them and they were clearly in their element making our little group feel like we were inconsequential. So beautiful, graceful, and powerful.

Cook Islands or the Maldives, fancy something a little cooler, Poor Knights in New Zealand