The ultimate diving and snorkeling thread!

[User1]

Lot of warm water divers it seems - I'm jealous. You all need to head out West and dive the cold waters of Monterey. I do enjoy warm water and most everything is than what I dive most of the time. Having said that I'm still hard pressed to find better diving than what we have here. Its different and of course subjective but cold waters offer different animals than what we see in other places. That and the kelp forests can be surreal. Great thread though and good to see I have been to a couple places listed here.

 

[MBX5]

Lot of warm water divers it seems - I'm jealous. You all need to head out West and dive the cold waters of Monterey. I do enjoy warm water and most everything is than what I dive most of the time. Having said that I'm still hard pressed to find better diving than what we have here. Its different and of course subjective but cold waters offer different animals than what we see in other places. That and the kelp forests can be surreal. Great thread though and good to see I have been to a couple places listed here.

It’s on my hit list for sure! Don’t think I’ll ever dive much cooler but I need to do the kelp forest one day.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Beautiful pics as videos!! I love this thread!!

 

[SMB]

Certified in 1972 but had a FOSW tank before that.
Spent over 2000 dives photographing UW and 4 years living in Curacao, diving and photographing. When I moved back to the States, traveling with UW gear, camera housings and photo gear was just too much. Hung up the fins but not the camera.
Was lucky to dive in several pacific locations as well.
Having a reef tank is a natural fit, but I do miss the big tank that was out my backdoor!

 

[NY_Caveman]

Certified in 1972 but had a FOSW tank before that.
Spent over 2000 dives photographing UW and 4 years living in Curacao, diving and photographing. When I moved back to the States, traveling with UW gear, camera housings and photo gear was just too much. Hung up the fins but not the camera.
Was lucky to dive in several pacific locations as well.
Having a reef tank is a natural fit, but I do miss the big tank that was out my backdoor!

Incredible shots! Thanks for sharing.

 

[MBX5]

Certified in 1972 but had a FOSW tank before that.
Spent over 2000 dives photographing UW and 4 years living in Curacao, diving and photographing. When I moved back to the States, traveling with UW gear, camera housings and photo gear was just too much. Hung up the fins but not the camera.
Was lucky to dive in several pacific locations as well.
Having a reef tank is a natural fit, but I do miss the big tank that was out my backdoor!

WOW! Amazing thanks for sharing

 

[DarthSimon]

I love Aruba, and dive there every few years... Here's a few videos....

 

[CalamityJen]

I recently got invited to go on Some diving trips. I would just need to get certified, and a passport. I would love to travel more than I do, and scuba has always been on my bucket list. Best of both worlds to me!

 

[SMB]

My pleasure.
If you are interested here are some more from my ws: https://sbysshe.smugmug.com/Underwater

I never could figure out how to keep one of these in a tank......

 

[DocTock993]

As mentioned in another thread about diving - I currently have not kept a salt tank since 1989, just spend my $ diving with a camera.

I also have a smugmug site for photo sharing which is in my "signature" below

Latest trip was to dive a photograph the sea lions at the rookery near La Paz, Mexico (the La Paz Gallery is not complete - there are pics of a really BIG fish I got to snorkel with...)

 

[zeroc0o0l]

Certified up to master, love being underwater! Been diving all over the world. Some hightlight

NJ - dark cold but lots of cool ship wrecks.

Bonaire - my second home. It’s like swimming in aquarium, water is so clear and crazy turquoise color . Have seen so make amazing things hard to list, all the “normal” Caribbean stuff, sea horse, frog fish, turtles, octopus, gobies, blennies, angels, decorator crabs, shrimp, worms and all kinds of coral. Was very luck to catch the coral spawn, amazing experience.

Australia - Great Barrier Reef, enough said ! Lots of different fish, cuddle fish, sharks and nudies. Made a stop in Adelaide to see leafy sea dragons ( yes dragons exist)

Wakatobi - (Southeast Sulawesi - Indonesia) They call this place the coral triangle for good reason, the Caribbean doesn’t even come close for different type of coral, colors are mind blowing. Highlight for sure is Pygmy sea horses, the size of your finger nail, simply amazing creatures.

Tobago - big fish / coral down that way and nicest people.

 

[GWHouston]

I got certified in 02. Wife got certified in 04. We were married on Maui and got to dive Maui and Kona. Last year we went to Grand C. Loved the Kittywake dive (my sig is the Kittywake) but every dive there was fabulous. I'll post pics tomorrow.

 

[GWHouston]

Actually, I was gonna say you were there first. That small sponge down on the face wasn't there when you took your photo. We were there only a year ago this month.

Old GoPro 4....I'm still using my GoPro 3+. I have used the Backscatter Flip 5 (mainly the dive and deep filters) for the last couple of years. Just got a Macromate for it a few weeks ago.

We had a pro 4 and a hero 5 last year. The 5 is an exceptional camera but works better as a video. My first camera setup was an Ikelite housing for a mini canon. It was ok but so much easier with the GoPro

 

[zeroc0o0l]

Some pics - make sure to zoom in never k of what you see

 

[zeroc0o0l]

 

[zeroc0o0l]

 

[MBX5]

Great photos! Good to see this thread picking up steam

 

[Chuk]

None of the pictures I’ve ever taken diving have come out well. I don’t really go enough to practice the photography part. My favorite in the Caribbean wa the Bahamas. We saw some awesome fish and corals and there were 6 blacktip reef shark cruising around with us. My favorite overall were in Hawaii we did Molokini of Maui which is great but a little busy but during the whale migration was still fantastic. We also a drift dive at our hotel with several sea turtles which was probably my favorite dive ever since we were down only 25 ft or so and not having to actively swim to move let us stay down almost 90min.

 

[saltyhog]

Outstanding photographs @SMB , @zeroc0o0l ! zeroc0o0l where was that clam and what kind of clam is it in that picture with the clowns? Love the macro shots and the eel in the vase sponge!

 

[davocean]

Certified in 1972 but had a FOSW tank before that.
Spent over 2000 dives photographing UW and 4 years living in Curacao, diving and photographing. When I moved back to the States, traveling with UW gear, camera housings and photo gear was just too much. Hung up the fins but not the camera.
Was lucky to dive in several pacific locations as well.
Having a reef tank is a natural fit, but I do miss the big tank that was out my backdoor!

Absolutely stunning photographs!
Please post more!