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:
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
déjà vu :)
I didn't take a picture of all the liveaboards I saw, but I saw many:
this one looked sweet
Phinisi I was on last time
but back to this one :)
and mid way through the trip, this fast boat got new guests in and old ones out
So, let's get to the diving:
my dive guide and dive buddy who made sure I didn't get lost :)
I had some reliability issues with my main camera case, so I ended up taking both cameras :)
clown triggerfish
a few sea snakes, I love those
found a fair amount of lobsters
One of the highlight spots of the trip was Richelieu Rock but when we arrived, the current was unbearable. Got some pictures but it as pretty rough:
Then it was the 6th and last day, 2 more dives;
a good amount of parrotfish
Across the multiple dives:
found a few nice nudis:
Muliple local pipefish and seahorses:
you can see 3 in this video
we did find multiple stonefish:
another beauty
One of my favorites is mantis shrimp:
and then I found this one :)
I tried to lure it out but this is as far as I got, it was smart
On the plus side, a fair amount of smaller octopuses:
And a highlight was seeing Octopus Sex, first time at night. I've read it takes up to 3h :)
had you seen an octopus erection before? :)
many moray eels:
two of them fighting for a fish, never seen this before
they would even bump into one another
Also got lucky with some nice sunsets:
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Thanks to all the nice Bavaria staff, despite the somewhat cramped boat, it was a good week.
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:
It had been 18 years since I had been in Fiji. Unfortunately all the liveaboards but one, are now gone and the one that was left did not run at useful dates for me. I ended up picking 2 fiji resort that offered diving. I asked Google AI for suggestions, and it offered going to Taveuni and Savusavu.
Paradise Tavenuni is an all inclusive diving resort at the end of the island. Small plane from Nadi to Taveuni, and then 1H+ car ride to the resort at the end of a dirt road :)
The dive center was attached to the resort, which was convenient. Their equipment was good, included nitrox, and their guides were also good. They had one very nice diving boat, and 2 smaller ones that still weren't bad. Diving-wise: they had 2 morning dives daily, unlimited afternoon dives on the house reef that was quite decent, and night dives 2-3 times a week (around 17:45, which thankfully ws before dinner). So basically you could do at least 3 dives a day, 4 when they had night dives
They had a camera/charging room, which was nice.
Accommodations were nice, and the full inclusive meals package was good. The staff was very nice and helpful.
Things to note are:
the resort is fairly small (pretty much nothing to do there but snorkel and dive)
there isn't anything to do nearby, and nothing at all that is really walkable.
the afternoon activities were fairly simple and short on most days (the ones at Bega Resort I wemt to many years prior, were better)
the optional tours were a bit better, but many conflicted with diving
So, let's look at the diving:
Morning Boat Dives, Rainbow Reef and Others
Rainbow Reef was the main area with the nice dive sites, but it was a 40mn daily boat ride away, which was a bit far. That said, the area was well worth it, pictures below:
plenty of scorpionfish
the few octopuses, hid well
my ownly but beautiful manta shrimp
multiple nice sea snakes
lots of firefly looking things, twinkling blue and the size of my nail
healthy population of barracudas
And as a special treat for the last day of diving, Manta Rays showed up at Rainbow Reef's Fish Factory:
Paradise House Reef
The house reef was quite decent:
Xmas!
leaf scorpionfish
It did have a beautiful eagle ray:
Paradise House Reef Night Dives
I ended up doing 3 night dives on the house reef, every dive that was available:
I was back in Malta and used the time to do a couple of 2 dive trip with Lewis, with whom I had dived before. The first day we went back to a nice wreck I had seen last time around:
A couple of days later, we went back for a couple of very nice shallow dives around caves and cool relief:
found a few fish :)
Two notes for myself: unfortunately not many fish at those sites, and the water was much colder than I remembered (17C). I definitely needed a bunch of layers not to be cold.
