Red Sea diving in Makadi Bay, Hurghada, Egypt, November 17-22, 2017

We went to Egypt to dive and that is all we did on this trip, our first to the Red Sea. In six days, we did 16 dives. 10 dives were by boat, and 6 were shore dives on the house reef:

Dive 1 - Abu Hashish Lagoon, Boat (check dive)
Dive 2 - Royal Garden, Boat
Dive 3 - House Reef, Shore (Guided)
Dive 4 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)
Dive 5 - Sharm el Arab, Boat
Dive 6 - Abu Hashish Drift, Boat
Dive 7 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)
Dive 8 - Gota Abu Makadi, Boat
Dive 9 - Torfa, Boat
Dive 10 - House Reef / Relittino, Shore (Unguided compass dive)
Dive 11 -  Cleopatra, Boat
Dive 12 - Torfa, Boat
Dive 13 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)
Dive 14 - Gota Abu Makadi, Boat
Dive 15 - Middle Makadi, Boat
Dive 16 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)

We dove with iDive at their Makadi Bay shop (they have 4) and couldn't have been happier with our choice. Here's the link to my TripAdvisor review. The only disappointment was that we couldn't do any Night Dives because Egyptian security have suspended all night diving in the area at the moment.

Along with the colourful, healthy coral, the star of this trip was all the new (to us) and varied sea life. We spotted many fish for the first time: cuttlefish, unicornfish (with the brow protusions), bird wrasse (that looked like mini dolphins to me), rock fish, scorpion fish, 2 new types of nudibranch, broomtail wrasse, blue-spotted rays, picasso triggerfish, titan triggerfish, sailfin tangs, pipefish, the red klunzinger's wrasse, bluegreen chromis and so many more. I loved looking up at coral heads and seeing them wreathed in a cloud of orange anthias - an iconic Red Sea image to me. And yes, we saw lots of fabulous clownfish (twobar anemonefish) in their anemones, often with babies. They were all very bold and stood their ground as we took a good look.

We will definitely go back to the Red Sea to dive, and might even squeeze in some Egyptian culture next time.

Firsts: First Red Sea dive, first compass dive.

Akumal & Cozumel Diving, April 19-24th, 2016

9 dives with Dive with Natalie and Ivan, including Night and Cenote diving. 2 dives in Cozumel.

Dive 1 - Motorcycle Reef
Dive 2 - Las Redes (The Nets)
Dive 3 - Tzimin-Ha (Seahorse) Reef
Dive 4 - Lobster Reef
Dive 5 - Palancar Brick, Cozumel
Dive 6 - Head of Delilah Reef (or Punta Dalila), Cozumel (Drift Dive)
Dive 7 - Half Moon Bay
Dive 8 - Las Redes (The Nets) / Morgan's Reef
Dive 9 - Motorcycle Reef/Las Redes (The Nets)  (Night Dive)
Dive 10 - Tajma Ha Cenote - south line (Cenote Dive)
Dive 11 - Tajma Ha Cenote - north line (Cenote Dive)

We holidayed back in the Akumal area, staying again at the Grand Palladium with friends. We really enjoyed diving with Natalie and Ivan last time we were here, so we arranged all our Akumal diving with them, including the Tajma Ha cenote, as Ivan has since gotten his full cave certification.

We enjoyed revisiting some familiar sites as well as a couple of new ones. Our night dive had a wicked current, but it was still fun after we figured out how to stay behind Ivan when he stopped to take photographs.

On our 3rd day, we took the ferry from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel and did a 2-tank dive with Blue XT Sea Diving. Our divemaster was Pedro. The first dive, Palancar Bricks, was full of swim-throughs, and the second dive at the head of Delilah was a full-on, amazing drift dive, where we saw 5 nurse sharks, including 3 swimming in a beautiful winding formation.

The final highlight of the week was diving the Tajma Ha Cenote. The halocline is strong here and fun to get under. We surfaced in the sugar bowl for a good look at the stalagtites and bats. There were many fossilized shells that Ivan pointed out, but the best part for me was the light piercing through the roof into the water, including one spot where it looked like the transporter beams from Star Trek.

Dive Map on google

I just made a map of our dive locations. I love maps.

Santorini Diving. June 5, 2015

Last week we traveled to Santorini to meet up with my birth mother, Janice. Since we were going for 5 nights, we thought we should sample the diving in Greece, especially since we've both been longing to go diving again, after too long of a break from it.

We chose Santorini Dive Center, but decided to start off by only booking a 2-tank dive the day after we arrived. If Santorini surpassed our rather low expectations, diving-wise, we could add some more diving later in our trip. Spoiler alert: we dove just the one day.

Dive 1: by boat to the Old Volcano (Palea Kameni). The shop owner, Paul, led this dive which is mainly to see the volcanic rock formations. This was just rocks to me, nothing unusual or startling. And very little marine life, which is the main reason we love to SCUBA dive. All we really saw were sponges, spirograph worms, and a couple of schools of very small fish.

Dive 2: by shore on the house reef at Caldera Beach, near Akrotiri. DM was Marc Lopez. This was the better of the two dives. Firstly, because there was much more sea-life here. We saw some great nudibranchs and some small but colourful wrasse and parrotfish, and one medium-sized barracuda. Since this was a Greek Islands dive, it was cool to see a large, undamaged amphora (a huge pot with two handles near the mouth). The other reason I enjoyed this dive more was because my buoyancy improved a lot after the previous dive and working out the kinks from not diving for awhile.

First: 1st Mediterranean Dive (temperate water)

This is the TripAdvisor review I wrote about the shop.
Dive Report I posted on ScubaBoard (a bit more detailed than above, but similar).

AOW Certification (Dominican Republic), Dec 1 - 6, 2013

Advanced Open Water Certification (5 specialty dives) with Diving Dominican Republic aka Sharky's Crew in Bayahibe. Vlad Heger was our Instructor, Pierre Pletinckx our Divemaster.

Dive 1 - Viva Shallows
Dive 2 - Dominicus Reef
Dive 3 - Parque 1 (Guaraguao), Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive (1)
Dive 4 - Atlantic Princess, Wreck Dive (2)
Dive 5 - St. George Wreck, Deep Dive (3)
Dive 6 - Coca Reef, Underwater Navigation Dive (4)
Dive 7 - Viva Shallows, Night Dive (5)
Dive 8 - El Penon
Dive 9 - Aquarium (La Tortuga)

Firsts: First Night Dive! First Octopus. First Wreck Dive.

 

This is the TripAdvisor review I wrote up on the Dive Shop.

Akumal Diving. Dec. 4 - 8, 2012

6 dives with Dive with Natalie and Ivan. 2 referred out to Sebastian for Cenote Diving.

Dive 1 - Tzimin-Ha (Seahorse) Reef
Dive 2 - Las Redes (The Nets) & Motorcycle Reef
Dive 3 - Dos Ojos Cenote, Barbie Line
Dive 4 - Dos Ojos Cenote, Bat Cave Line
Dive 5 - Morgan's Reef
Dive 6 - South Point Reef


First: 1st cenote dive!

This is the TripAdvisor review I wrote up on the Dive Operation

Cold Water Diving in Sechelt Inlet. Aug. 6 - 7, 2012

4 dives. Including one dive which Steve and I did on our own!

Lew and Rob from Suncoast Diving.

Dive 1 - Swinging Tire Ridge, shore dive
Dive 2 - Piper's Point, boat dive off Zodiac
Dive 3 - Tuwanek Spit, South Island, boat dive off Zodiac
Dive 4 - Tuwanek Lamb Islets, North Island, shore dive off dock, unguided dive

Firsts: 1st cold water dive. 1st unguided dive. 

Vancouver Aquarium Diver's Weekend. Jan 21 - 22, 2012

We'd wanted to check out the Vancouver Aquarium for awhile and finally went on January 22, 2012. We were pretty surprised and pleased to find out this was the 13th Annual Divers' Weekend at the Aquarium with booths set up, demonstrations, and lots of scheduled speakers on many aspect of diving. Next year, we'll remember to bring our PADI cards for the 50% discount!

As well as enjoying the aquarium, we checked out 2 seminars: Diving the wrecks of Vanuatu, and Living the Dream: Making Money Diving. This last seminar was presented by Greg McCracken owner of Ocean Quest Dive Centre and the instructor of the Professional SCUBA diver program through Capilano University.

Since the seminar, we've checked out Ocean Quest in Burnaby and received top notch advice from Ken on gear and courses. We hope to do a course with these guys in the future.

OW Certification. Tropical Referral (Cozumel). Dec. 4 - 7, 2011

Went the tropical referral route. Chose a small dive operation, Buena Ventura Diving, in Cozumel for the open water part of our OW  certification.

Mario spent the 4th and 5th with us covering all the skills at Palancar Gardens (twice), Delilah Reef and Paso Del Cedral.

We followed up with a 2 tank dive on the 7th with Jorge, their Divemaster. This was at Palancar Horseshoe and Delilah.

Firsts: 1st Certification! 1st shark! 1st drift dive!

Open Water Certification. November 12 - 13, 2011

Did the Open Water Certification course and pool work in Vancouver with Diving Locker. Paul Quiggle was our Instructor. Each day started with videos and tests followed by pool work out at UBC's indoor and outdoor pools. Colin Duffy was the assistant instructor and there were 5 of us in the group, 2 male teenagers and a man about our age whose wife dives.

Firsts: 1st walking any distance in full gear!

Discover SCUBA again. February 20, 2011

Steve and I didn't have time to get our Open Water Certification before going to our friends' wedding in Ixtapa, so we signed up for another Discover SCUBA when we were there. We weren't going to miss out on diving! We were staying at the Barcelo in Ixtapa and used the resort dive shop again, Ixtapa Aqua Paradise.

We did the video and pool lesson at 5pm on Saturday, Feb. 19th. Then did the two tank dive on Sunday, Feb. 20th from 9am to 1pm. They drove us to Zihuatenejo bay and we dove two sites:
Dive 1 was Manzanillo, average depth 38', bottom 45'. 10 lbs, 3mm long suit.
Dive 2 was Caleta del Chon, 40' average, bottom 45'.
About 35 min each. Saw seahorses and a cool pufferfish the guide held gently so we could stroke his back. Don't know if this is a good idea, but we were surprised that it felt rubbery instead of spiky.

The water was very murky at the top with viz of about 3'. We followed a rope down to where the viz cleared to about 5m. We purchased the photos taken during the dive. There was another couple with us, including the wife who was finishing her OW certification, so we watched as she did a few navigation exercises.

Firsts: 1st seahorse! 1st 2 tank dive.

Discover SCUBA. December 2, 2010

We were staying at the Grand Palladium in the Mayan Riviera when we decided to find out what SCUBA diving was all about. This was our 3rd Caribbean trip. We'd fallen in love with snorkeling on our previous trips, particularly at nearby beaches, lagoons and cenotes.

Herve with Scuba Caribe on the resort got us started with the 1 hour video and the pool training. Then we went out in their boat to the dive site (Aquario?) with Herve, Frederick the Argentinian camera guy, 2 boat crew, and another divemaster Pedro who lead 2 couples.

I bumped my head flipping backwards out of boat, and doing a full backwards 360. It was about a 45 minute dive at 40' (12-15m). Steve was emptying his tank pretty fast so Herve gave him air for the last part of the dive.

Herve found a little crab like cleaner thing to show us. We came up slowly with a couple of pauses.

Back in boat, I felt a little woozy and light-headed, then fine. Then while we were waiting for the others to come up I felt a little seasick. After we returned our equipment, we saw a rough video which we bought for $60 and tipped Herve.

First dive down and we loved it.

Firsts: 1st dive!

A Diving Adventure: Intro

Soon after we met, Steve wanted to take me on vacation to Mexico. I wasn't so sure. This video we saw later, pretty much sums it up.

Steve let me do some research and pick where we would go. Instinctively, I was drawn to the blue Caribbean waters, over the rougher Pacific coast, and selected a spot on the Mayan Riviera between Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
I was won over from the first trip and it was then that we discovered the amazing snorkeling in the Caribbean. We couldn't believe all the cool, colourful fish, and were so excited to see a turtle! The next year we were back, this time to Cuba. We went to Varadero and while we had heard about the amazing beach, this was the white sand, no reefs variety, and we badly missed the fish. From then on, we have made sure that we stay somewhere with coral reefs right off the beach. On our third trip, we returned to the Mayan Riviera, again near Akumal and Steve convinced me to try SCUBA with him. What follows are our SCUBA adventures.