Where Was Your Favorite Dive?

The question is simple, but it's a two parter: Where was your favorite dive and why?

[brandon]

I have two favorites:

La Reyna - La Paz, BCS

Small seamount about an hour and a half outside of La Paz, positioned beautifully in the Sea of Cortez. We did two dives here on a recent trip, both with heavy current.

The second dive was the most memorable for me. We had intended to go look at the remains of a shipwreck, which was pretty bland and boring, then swam to explore the edges of the seamount. The dive group had split into two different groups by this point, and the DM and I were exploring the seamount alone.

As we approached a saddle like area in the reef, where we were crossing over to the other side, I saw the biggest school of fish I have ever seen. They were so thick I couldn't see the reef, and felt like I should gently brush them aside so I could keep on swimming. At this point I reached down for my camera... and realized it was on the boat. The entire seamount is like this - huge schools of fish swimming in the currents all over the place!

We crossed the saddle and were on the other side of the seamount, in a small canyon with 45' high sides or so. We had ended the first dive here, and I was excited to return - lots of sea lion activity on the earlier dive. The DM signalled for me to hang out in this area solo for a while, as he went to check on the other divers.

Those 10 minutes were awesome - played with the sea lions, checked out the life on the sides of the canyon, looked for life under small cracks. Sat back on a ledge and just watched the life for several minutes. Very relaxing, and one of the most beautiful underwater scenes I've ever seen. I really felt like this was the entire reason that I had started diving.

Total bottom time for that dive was approximately 40 minutes. The beginning of the dive was a total cluster (inexperienced divers in heavy current = bad idea), but the actual dive more than made up for it. Great visibility, with pristine clear blue water.

Devilfish Point, Dutch Harbor, Alaska

This is a local dive for me, and is a recently discovered boat diving site. I took a pair of vacationing divers out here in early August, trying to show them the best of Aleutian Islands diving. One of my friends had thought this would be a good dive, but hadn't dove it herself nor heard about anyone who had. The awesome friend she is, she offered to take us out there on her boat and tend the boat while we dove the site.

As we descended, I could tell immediately that we were in for an awesome dive. The water was clear and blue - something we very rarely see here in Dutch Harbor, and visibility seemed to strech forever (realistically - 30 feet or so). As I approached the bottom, I immediately realized that we were in a monsterous boulder field and there was life everywhere!

We started swimming along, following a depth contour of about 60'. Very quickly, I started noticing that I was seeing critters and life that we usually don't see on our typical dives. Sponges I hadn't seen... a small Grunt Sculpin that I'd never seen before, lots of little red banded shrimp. As we progressed, I noticed that the bottom sloped to a sandy flat about 20' below us... a good spot with a chance to see halibut or other game fish. As we dropped down the boulders seemed to get bigger, now with huge black rockfish hiding in between them. They weren't at all shy, one of the bigger ones swam right up to me, looked at me for a second, then turned and slowly swam away.

This dive will forever remain with me for several reasons... the awesome sense of diving a site no one had been at before, the amazing visibility that is so rare for here, the huge variety of sea life. I didn't want the dive to end.

Let's here some more favorites!

-Brandon.

[cgvmer]

Simple St Thomas, because it's the last place I dove, my next favorite place is where I'm going to dive next, which I don't know yet.

[cutter77]

First OW dive after certification on Blackbeards. Flat seas, great dive buddy, super viz, and tons of fish. Had eyes big as saucers and ain't looked back since!

[gtjason2000]

St. Lucia, shore night dive off Tikaye resort. We saw a turtle that was checking us out rather than swimming away. At the same time the DM conducting the dive caught a pufferfish and was causeing it to puff up to show us and take pictures of. My wife likes to call it pufferfish v. turtle on what to watch. Also on the dive we saw a small school of squid and one of them seemed like he was flexing his tentacles to scare us away.

[jmb]

Favorite local dive would be the Monarch - a small wreck in the St Clair River
Most amazing dive would be with the Manta ray dive with Jack's Diving Locker in Hawaii

[mwhities]

Cozumel so far.. why? Because I saw my first shark there. 6-7' Nurse Shark.

Michael

[Travelnsj]

One dive that had to be my favorite I have ever done called the Passe Nord Garuae in Fakarava. We started out swimming against a strong current up to a ridge looked out and there must have been 50 sharks in the current. We than swam down to a valley that was about 60 feet deep by at least 100 to 150 yards long. The bottom was a mixture of white sand with what I call popcorn coral….small beige, light purple and blue colors were at the bottom. There were schools after schools of Trevally’s, Solderfish, Goby’s, Moorish Idols, Seapearch etc etc…all Motionless…..parting the way as we swam thru them. You would look above….patrolling Grey sharks and at least 5 big Napoleon Wrasses floating amongst the schools of fish…..Never seen anything like this dive!

[georoc01]

Punta Tunich in Cozumel. There was a nice current and saw more different critters on a single dive.

[scubasavvy]

In the cold murky depths of New England waters, so I can tell everyone I went diving in 50 degree water...and it was uphill both ways...