dive site directory - Past Features
© Jenny Pickles
Scuba Diving in the Maldives at Lhaviyani Atoll
Thank you to Jenny Pickles for contributing this month's section on Lhaviyani Atoll in the Maldives. Located 80km north of Male international Airport, it is accessed by regular seaplane transfers. Jenny stayed at Kuredu, the northern-most island in Lhaviyani Atoll. She was lucky enough to see a sailfish, normally found only in open ocean, as well as manta rays, eagle rays and grey reef sharks. For non-divers there are plenty of activities, including golf, spas, pools, a water sports centre, fishing trips, dolphin trips and snorkelling.
© dsd
Scuba Diving Australia's East Coast
We have updated our East Coast Australia section to include more overviews, diving photos and diving reviews. See our extended South West Rocks section, for its latest additions and our brand new Brisbane section. Brisbane is not a place you would automatically think of if planning where to dive in Australia and the diving there is not as good as elsewhere in the country, but it's always useful to know about the diving in a region, however good!
© Tony Gilbert
Scuba Diving in the Isles of Scilly, UK
Lying nearly 30 miles WSW of Cornwall, the Scilly Isles lie directly in the path of the Gulf Stream, which blesses them with warm moist weather and mild climate. The 56 islands and hundreds of rocks are made of granite resulting in clean sandy beaches, a bright seabed and clear green water. Reefs provide the diver with multilevel profile opportunities as depths can go to 40m - 70m at the shorelines, providing stunning vistas chocked full of marine creatures. Seals can often be seen on sites and dolphins and porpoises frequent the area, as do occasional basking sharks. Hundreds of wrecks have foundered over the centuries and there are around 1000 recorded and estimated to be 3000 wrecks meaning there is something to entertain every diver. Thanks once again to Tony Gilbert for contributing this sections write-ups and stunning photos.
© Anna Wright
Scuba Diving in the Seychelles
The Seychelles lie 1,500km off of the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. They are made up of 155 islands including many remote coral islands. The marine life around the islands can be spectacular with large numbers of fish and coral species present. The use of gill nets for shark fishing as well as the practice of shark finning are now banned and in some areas turtle poulations are recovering. Regular dive site directory contributor Anna Wright visited the Seychelles during 2007 and managed to explore 7 different sites on two seperate islands.
© Monty Halls
© Monty Halls
Spectacular Scuba Diving in Sudan, the Red Sea
This month we are very happy to bring you some of the very best diving the Red Sea has to offer from our recent trip to Sudan. Nine beautiful reef dives and two fantastic wrecks including that of the Umbria which is arguably one of the best wreck dives in the world. We were lucky enough to dive with a fantastic set of divers including the renowned diver and TV documentary maker Monty Halls who very kindly donated some of his excellent photography to compliment our reviews. Although the recent unrest in Sudan has hardly put it high on the to do list of holiday destinations we're sure you'll agree once you've seen the reviews that it is a must for any diver.
© Malik Chibah
© Ben Randall
Shark Cage Diving in Cornwall with Blue Sharks & Cage Diving in South Africa with Great Whites
It’s hard to believe what a fantastic day we had cage diving out of Cornwall in search of blue and porbeagle sharks. Beautiful weather, fantastic scenery and easily one of the best close encounters we have had with large marine life to date. At one point we had three two metre long blue sharks circling us and coming up close giving us and the divers we were with ample opportunity to take lots of photos of these stunning animals. It leaves you in no doubt that we need to do everything we can to protect these beautiful creatures from extinction. Many thanks to Jenny Pickles and Malik Chibah for contributing their excellent images.
Click here to find out more.
If that doesn't fulfil your appetite for shark action we've also just added an excellent video of cage diving with a great white in South Africa courtesy of Ben Randall, we particularly like the sound effects when the white is chewing on the cage! View the video.
© Carsten Sørensen
Three New Locations Added to the Philippines Section
We’ve added three new diving locations in the Philippines thanks to the contributions of Carsten Sørensen. As well as reviews for a selection of dive sites for each location all sites are accompanied by photos to help you get a really good feel for the diving there. The new locations are Cabilao Island, Boracay and Sabang on Mindoro. Thanks Carsten!
© Tony Gilbert
Scuba Diving in St Abbs, Scotland
Just in case you are in any doubt of the quality of diving in Scotland, and if you have read our previous articles on Sky and Scapa Flow this is very doubtful, Tony Gilbert has kindly written up 14 new dive sites for St Abbs. As well as detailed write ups Tony has also contributed stunning photographs of each site and even a wreck illustration to accompany the wreck of the Glanmire. All this leaves us wishing that the skies were a little bluer, it was a little warmer and that the UK diving season wasn’t so seasonal!
© Carina Hall
More Dive Sites and Stunning images of Diving in Borneo
Many thanks to Carina hall for extending our Borneo section further with a selection of new dive sites and some stunning images. We're sure you'll agree that once you've visited the section you'll be in no doubt that Borneo is a must dive for any avid reef diving fan. We're currently in the process of building a Borneo screen saver using Carina's images to help readers beat the winter blues, and will put this up soon on the screen saver page.
Currently the new dive sites only have images not reviews so if you have dived any of the sites please leave comments and we will add them to the pages.
© Rik Vercoe New Wreck Illustrations for Truk Lagoon and Red Sea
Many thanks to Rik Vercoe for contributing more excellent and detailed wreck drawings / illustrations of wreck dives in Truk Lagoon, Micronesia and Fury Shoals, Marsa Alam in the Red Sea. We're sure you'll agree that they give you an excellent overall impression of the wrecks which should come in very handy when you are visiting or planning diving at the dive sites. Wreck illustrations include Aikoku Maru, Fujikawa Maru, Hoki Maru, Kansho Maru, Sankisan Maru in Truk and Abu Galawa and the Tienstin Wreck in Fury Shoals.
© Rik Vercoe Scuba diving in Vietnam and Cambodia
Thanks also to Rik for his reviews and photos of three dive sites in Cambodia and Vietnam. Whilst this might not be the best diving in Southeast Asia, the reviews and photos are descriptive and give a good indication to the type of diving to expect from this region.
Scuba Diving Skye in Scotland
We've just returned from Skye in Scotland after experiencing some of the best reef diving the UK has to offer, in fact some of the reefs easily rival those abroad for sheer variety and abundance of marine life. This combined this with visibility of up to 15m, the stunning scenery above the water and a good chance of seeing both whales and basking sharks between dives makes Skye a diving destination that is well worth visiting.
© Martin &
Tracy Frankcom Scuba Diving Coron in the Philippines
This month Martin & Tracy Frankcom have kindly donated a selection of reviews for wreck diving in Coron in the Philippines. There are detailed write ups and images of 9 Japanese World War II vessels as well as one reef dive in the local marine park, all illustrated with photos. This is a world class diving location rivalling even Bikini and Truk Lagoon and is well worth a look if you a self-confessed wreck junkie. Thank you Martin & Tracy!
© Rik Vercoe
Scuba Diving in the Southern Red Sea
We have been working on a massive revamp of our Southern Red Sea section over the last two months. This has involved adding hundreds more photos, improved dive site maps and 15 new dive sites. The old Marsa Alam section used to include Fury Shoals and St John's. These are now sections in their own right due to the sheer volume of content they contain. Navigate from the Red Sea home page to see where these areas lie in relation to Marsa Alam. We would like to thank Rik Vercoe and Gerhard Niezen for contributing more reviews to our ever-growing Red Sea directory, helping to make it to be what is probably the most detailed Red Sea dive site resource on the internet.
© dsd Scuba Diving Isla del Caño, Costa Rica
Caño Island in the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica is home to the best diving in mainland Costa Rica. The diving will see you encounter a stunning array of tropical fish including schools of snapper and grunts that just go on and on. Stingrays and white tip reef sharks are in abundance and it is not unknown for tiger and bull sharks to frequent the area, particularly on the deeper site of Bajo del Diablo. Perhaps the highlight for divers is the number of cetaceans found in the water including dolphins, false killer whales and humpback whales. Caño Island is not far from Corcovado National Park, one of the last remaining tracts of primary rainforest in the country. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty and the wildlife is phenomenal - definitely worth a visit!
© Tony Gilbert Scuba Diving in the UK
We have brought more colour to our UK section courtesy of Tony Gilbert who has adde | 
