This is a collection of my blog entries and experiences with diving.
You can find all the pictures I've taken here, and read below for recountings of my more recent trips:
I had a few extra days in the Caribeans area before flying to Europe and went to Curacao for land based diving. I found out once arrived that boat diving was pointless there as all the reefs were accessible by the coast. At the same time, the dive company at Lion's beach dive resort was very underwelming: They were expensive, they were fully booked out, so I was not able to go with them more than one day, but it was a blessing, they only offered overused shorties in 26C water, WTF?!? I Was freezing..., the boat was unnecessary as you could drive to the dive sites, and they stuck me with the most inept group of divers I have seen in a very long time. Thankfully the dive guide let me solo dive while he was struggling to grab 3 old ladies that couldn't dive to save their lives.
useless boat in the end
I loved the blue shrimps
I found a slipper lobster, during the day, first time ever in 20y+!
tugboat
wonderful patterns
The next 2 days, I did private dives with a shore dive company and was super lucky to be the sole diver, so that was a huge win:
growing new heat tolerant coral
lots of colorful baracudas
I love the small boxfish/puffers
those colorful spotted bluefish were super nice but very skittish
I love squid, and saw several:
lovely video
And then seahorses!
Day #3:
more squid
After the 2 dives, I did dolphin experience at the aquarium:
Decent diving overall, different from what I was used to, and super important to dive with the right shop. I also learned that for that one location, shore diving actually worked just as well, or better, than more expensive boat diving.
I haven't actually dived in hte Carribeans that much, so I joined my friend Arturo for this liveaboard. Trip starts was in St Kitts, which we used the opportunity to visit for an hour or so while waiting for the boat to ready to let us board. The two islands are actually called St Christophers and Nevis, which somehow got shortened as St Kitts :)
Like all carribean diving, it's not really possible to get there from California without an undesirable red eye, or a layover and hotel somewhere on the east coast. That's what we did by spending the night in Newark:
Decent plane to St Kitts
Arturo and I arrived a bit before the boat was ready for us, so we dropped out luggage and went to visit the pretty small downtown St Kitts, which is really only meant as a few hours stop for cruiseships"
found the one church
the main 'downtown' is really just a few restaurants and bars
And then time to head to the boat:
first liveaboard I've been on without an indoor saloon, so I made do with the half outdoor one
My quick review on the boat:
food was good
so was staff
cabin was ok
nitrox at 34% which was nice
5 dives a day, but sadly the night dive was after dinner, which is not my favorite
Only one guide for up to 14 people was the biggest issue, I've never been in a boat with such a bad diver/guide ratio, especially as some dives had very bad visibility
Here is a map of our trip:
St Kitts Diving
St Kitts was reasonably good diving (better in Saba later), here are a few pictures:
cute puffers
a handful of reef sharks
Seahorse!
Night dives had decent life:
In between the dives in St Kitts, there was an optional stop for a few hour tour of another side of St Kitts: a Rum Store, botanical garden, and fort:
Last, was the pretty impressive fort:
mongoose
Saba Diving
After 2 days of diving around St Kitts, a stone's throw from where we boarded, the boat went to Saba, a nearby Dutch island. Diving was overall better there.
yeah, I can't see you :)
found a few scorpionfish
lots of lobsters, which apparently can live up to 100 years?
ray shadow :)
beautiful spotted snake eel
seahorse!
Fun to see the rays hunting with little fish following them to get scraps:
Friendly Saba Nurse Sharks
And the huge, and I do mean huge, hightlight, were a couple of dive sites where young nurse sharks, decided it was enjoyable for them to come to divers and be pet, literally like cats. I hope no one will be confused enough to say you shouldn't pet sharks, when those literally came to you for you to do it. They never got fed by humans, so it's not entirely sure why they've grown to like this, but they do.
They were curious and came to say hello:
And for one of those dives, one of the small nurse sharks, chose me to be pet for a whole 4mn:
folding its fins to use them as feet :)
Night dives were also good, even if their timing after dinner was not great:
slipper lobster
nurse sharks went hunting
The last (6th) day had a very early start with a single dive at 06:00 so that the boat to get to St Marteen and get fuel before everything shutdown at 13:00 for the holidays that day.:
After that the boat went to St Marteen:
St Marteen Arrival
The boat ended up in St Marteen, where we didn't do any diving, but is a convenient port to fly out of. Sadly the day we arrived was a holiday on the dutch side, so briefly went to check out the french side:
kind of funny that such a small island is split in 2 different countries
My last time diving in Thailand didn't have the most sea life, but I thought it was probably because it was very early season (the very first trip of the winter). This time I was back in Thailand for EDC Phuket, so I came early to go diving and due to my dates, there was actually a single boat out of the 20+ that I could go to, and it was the Bavaria. By the time I booked it was late and I only got the last (very small) room. It was not the most comfortable as a result, but it was probably the most affordable liveabord I've been on, so it was good value for money. Ultimately the issue is I picked the wrong boat but it was the only one that fit my schedule:
room was super small, no room for my luggage and no bathroom
Here is our trip:
One "interesting" thing with all the liveboards in Phuket, is that they all seem to leave at the exact same days, which is unfortunate when you need specific dates like I did. Also many boats only went for 2-4 days when I wanted 6 minimum. There were 4 boats anchored and ready to leave at the same time:
food was good
Although the boat was on the smaller side for the amount of divers, there was also a fair amount of crew to take care of us, and they did a great job:
This boat trip had a stop on 2 islands, which was fun and enjoyable:
looked for those but was not able to find any
fun local pigeons
and noisy bats :)
also found my water monitor big lizard from last time
It had been a while since I had dived in Maui. It's not a bad place, but there are many other places to dive around the world, so I went there too. Things that changed in Maui were:
Maui has become unreasonably expensive, and unfortunately on top of that, they've added punitive parking fees, very short sighted as driving away tourists that are supposed to help rebuild after covid and the Lahaina fire and destructions, isn't really going to work (parking 20mn by Dragon's Teeth was $35, parking in the condo complex just north of Laihana, after already paying a lot to stay there, was another $150. WTF?)
At the time I regretted not staying a few days in Lahaina. Of course, it all burnt down so now it's really not much to look at except expensive resorts and golf courses. This also means there is only one company left diving out of Lahaina. That's better than 0, but 1 means it's a huge mess of total beginners, mixed with advanced divers. Not good...
There are some dive companies that dive out of the pier close to the aquarium in the middle of the island, but it doesn't make sense to stay in Lahaina just to drive back down and then boat up, unless they go to Molokini in which case you should stay in Kihei which is a bit cheaper.
Pro Diver Maui in Kihei
The first 4 days were spent in Kihei, diving with Pro Diver Maui. There are still multiple dive companies that dive from there every morning (06:15 at the harbor, ugh), but not that many that cater to advanced divers or do 3 dives instead of 2. Ed Robinson has moved on of course (he was already old 15 years ago), so I found Pro Diver Maui which do 3 tank dives from time to time, but not the days I was there. However, instead of the 3 tank dive on saturday, they did a special trip to Lanai to dive Cathedrals 1 and 2, which turned out to work great. The crew was professional and did a good job letting more advanced divers enjoy longer dives while the beginners run out of air early.
All the dives ended up being at Molokini frontside (I was told backside is really not that great for fish life and is just a deep wall dive) and the guides did a great job making sure divers of each level got to enjoy the most diving possible. Here are the best pictures:
Kihei Based diving starts before sunrise to go diving before the wind picks up and the conditions worsen:
the harbor can't keep boats but every morning they get put in the water
the lobster had eyes inside it ;)
Lanai Cathedrals with Pro Diver Maui (from Kihei) and Dive Maui (from Lahaina)
I thought the traverse to Lanai would take a lot longer from Kihei, but turn out they had a faster boat and it took a bit over 1H at 20kts or so.
Two days later, I was back with Dive Maui from Lahaina, their boat was slower and the sea was rough, so it too just as long to get there as it did from Kihei, and sadly the smaller boat filled at capacity included some total beginner divers that absolutely did not belong on that boat and ruined the trip for everyone else. I got less than 10mn underwater before we were recalled under water to look for an inept diver that lost the group from the start and did not swim back towards the boat, making us go get her and cancelling diving for everyone else. How is that even possible? :-/
thankfully that dive shop was not damaged by the fires
boats were very filled to capacity, 14 divers
got to hear whales under water and see them
after a bouncy and wet boat ride, got to cathedrals in Lanai
yeah, that was it. 3H trip there and back for less than 10mn in the water :-(
3rd try going to Cathedrals, another slow-ish traverse (more than 1H) but the conditions were good:
Lahaina Jetty with Dive Maui
The rest of the dives were shore dives, especially as the boat trip to Lanai was cancelled on the 3rd day due to rough seas, so I did more shore diving on the 3rd day. Turns out the Jetty dive in front of the dive shop was actually excellent.
swimming frog fish
2 lovely eagle rays
even got a monk seal, which is rare!
After the Lanai trip was cancelled on the 3rd day (sadly 2nd cancellation out of 3 trips), I ended up doing 2 more shore dives that were pretty decent. Thanks to Sean who came back to work to come dive with me:
the Hawaii state fish, a kind of triggerfis
4 eagle rays came to visit!
many turtles
Ending Words: Still Pretty Good Diving, But Less Affordable and Welcoming as Hawaii Used to Be
All in all the diving was pretty good, but I'm not sure I'd consider Maui a top dive destination anymore due to the problems with Hawaii (pricing, and tourist scamming). The diving was decent, but out of Kihei you can only dive in the morning, and out of Lahaaina, you're paying a fortune just to stay there or deal with a 1h-ish drive from Kihei, and once you've done the jetty dive a few times, and it was excellent, you're going to run out of things quickly. The Lanai Cathedrals were good, but a pain to get to, even from Lahaina, and I just can't recommend it as a diving destination given the tough traverse that can cancel the trip, and the currently sole diving company going there daily that mixes totally beginner divers with advanced ones, putting everyone at risk for cancelled dives and everyone subject to the weakest link. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any boat diving locations from Lahaina when the boat can't go to Lanai.
Once you add that Hawaii has gotten way expensive and sharks-like parking companies deciding to screw over tourists (that is you parkling.com, you are blood suckers, GFY), not understanding that they are going to suffer the same fate than Vegas if they continue (i.e. tourists not coming back and warning others not to go). Hawaii, you need to get rid of those blood suckers urgently if you still want people to come back.
I was back for Captured Festival 2025, and was able to take 2 extra days to go diving. This time, I knew Lewis and it made sense to go diving with him directly, which I did. Since basic shore based diving in Malta can be on the disappointing side at times, especially if weather doesn't cooperate, Lewis set us up with a boat on the first day (strangely boat diving is not much of a thing in Malta, so I had to rent the boat to myself), and the 2nd day, we rented DPVs, which are always fun on their own, but in this case also allowed easy reach of divesites without a boat. Much thanks to Lewis for coming up with that.
Day 1: Gozo and Camino Island
I met Lewis at the pier to get our boat:
Malta coastline if of course filled with forts, big and small
After all these years of diving, I finally found Jesus ;)
Camino Island has very cool rocks, caves and holes for sure
it was filled with people indeed, thankfully diving was quite
I got super lucky with water quality on the first day. Outside of caves, we went to see Wrecks like the MV Karwela:
Next was the P31 Wreck, in very clear water:
Last were some nice caves around Camino Island:
Day 2: Gozo via DPV
The 2nd day, we went to Gozo via ferry and did DPV diving all day, which was both fun and gave access to sites that would have been difficult to get to.
Eaarly morning ferry to Gozo:
Gozo Island inland sea behind an interesting hole in the rocks:
Blue hole was next and pretty cool:
I surfaced briefly to have a look :)
and back down to see Lewis who was waiting for me
The last dive was back on the main island due to high winds, so we took a ferry back to the main island and there was a great divesite just by the ferry arrival:
entry was a bit rough, but once in the water, it was great
after meeting jesus, I got our lady :)
With the DPVs, we arrived at P29 in no time, and water was clear:
nice machine gun
And that was it, 4 more dives done, and thanks to somewhat better weather and Lewis' expertise, got 8 of the best dives you can get in Malta in 2 days, thanks Lewis.
For week 2 of diving in Fiji (week one was Taveuni), I picked another island and went to Savusavu area and stayed at Savasi Island. The island and resort were both beautiful, but they only had a very small 3rd party dive boat which they did not even make proper reservations for me with, so I missed the first day as the boat left 1h earlier than normal, and without me (while I was there, but told not to go before 08:00 because no one would be there, yet). This was very disappointing to be honest, but as a result I ended up going to the Jeam Michel Cousteau diving center, which was absolutely world class, although it's stuck in a very overpriced family friendly resort where it does not below. As a result, I ended up using a driver to get there and back (30mn each way), daily.
Anyway, while most of the dives were done from JMCDC, and the sea conditions were not great, still saw some cool things:
cleaning shrimp
lovely little dance they do while cleaning your hands
magic coral
beautiful Juvenile Dragon Wrasse
great to see them walking around
And then, found this beautiful baby cuttlefish:
lovely colors
My last day, the conditions were poor, so I went to sheltered Natewa Bay with Ocean Ventures, who nicely agreed to a private diving trip. Very cool seafloor and soft corals:
After diving, the last day, got to see a pearl farm and theb snorkling at split rock:
