Ever since I heard the announcement of Bill Paxton’s death on Sunday morning, I’ve realized that there’s a whole lot I didn’t know about the talented actor. For example, I didn’t realize director James Cameron and Bill Paxton had been friends for several decades until I read Cameron’s touching response to Paxton’s death, which he shared in an email to Vanity Fair on Sunday afternoon. According to Cameron, the two started working together on someone else’s films, building sets for director Roger Corman. From there, they became not only collaborators, on films like Titanic, but also close friends.
TMZ broke the story that Paxton died of surgery complications and in a statement, Paxton’s family shared, “A loving husband and father, Bill began his career in Hollywood working on films in the art department and went on to have an illustrious career spanning four decades as a beloved and prolific actor and filmmaker.”
Paxton’s above-mentioned decades of work were frequently spent alongside Cameron. Their first on-screen collaboration was Terminator, in which Paxton was given a small (but hilarious) role as a punk who is given the old one-two by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robot self at Griffith Observatory. Later, Paxton would go on to appear as a supporting actor in Cameron’s most heralded films — Aliens, True Lies, and Titanic. He was also a part of Cameron’s undersea documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss, in which the duo and historians travel to the final resting place of the Titanic.
Source: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
Cameron’s words about his late friend really pulls at the heart strings. The opening, — “I’ve been reeling from this for the past half hour, trying to wrap my mind and heart around it. Bill leaves such a void” — is totally a sentiment that can be shared by anyone who’s experienced a loss. The full statement is as follows:
What a beautiful tribute, shared by someone who clearly knew Paxton well and will miss him greatly.
Bill Paxton in the following video talks about him and Cameron being on PCP together… Somebody spiked the on set clam chowder! A case of beer saved the day…
The Bahamas… if anyplace in the world is said to have multiple personalities, it would be the Bahamas. With over 3,000 islands and cays, there are many ways it can be different. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is a part of the Commonwealth of Nations, formerly called the British Commonwealth. While they drive on the right-hand side of the road. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the British Overseas Territory Turks and Caicos inhabit the Lucayan Archipelago. The Archipelago is included in the West Indies, however, it is not a part of the Caribbean. However, most people including those from the Bahamas do consider it a part of the Caribbean. Many Bahamians look at their country as two distinct parts: the main islands and the Out Islands. Each with a different lifestyle and culture. For the tourist and more importantly the scuba diver two very different vacation experiences. The tourism industry is the largest employment sector with over 50% of the jobs being in this industry. Second is the finance sector.
Bahamas Main Islands
The Main Islands of the Bahamas are Grand Bahama Island and New Providence Island along with a few nearby cays and islands. The population of the Bahamas is about 400,000 and 80% of those people live in the Main Islands. Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, is located on New Providence Island. This island and the connected small Paradise Island is home to over 70% of the countries population. Nassau is also the center of tourism in the Bahamas. You will find casinos, luxury shopping and hotel chains here. Nassau is the busiest cruise port in the world and 70% of the countries tourist are cruise ship passengers. Grand Bahama Island is the home of the city of Freeport and about 10% of the population.
Darby Island and Rudder Cut Cay, Exumas
Photograph by Christina Hawkins
Diving Bahamas Main Islands
Diving in the Main Islands is legendary. There have been so many underwater scenes filmed around New Providence Island, including iconic scenes in James Bond movies, it is often called “Underwater Hollywood”. Many of the best dive sites are on the western edge of the island and are near the area known as the Tongue of the Ocean. The Tongue of the Ocean is a
The Tongue of the Ocean is a deep-water trench that is between Andros Island and New Providence Island. The reefs around New Province Island are generally in the 60 to 80-foot range. Whereas the floor of the Tongue of the Ocean is between 3,600 feet (1,100 m) to 6,600 feet (2,000 m) deep. The reefs benefit from the deep water as nutrients are brought from the depths. Sharks and other pelagic also visit the shallow reefs. Expect to see sharks on just about every dive. Looking over the edge of the reef into deep water you may see some of them way below you. There really is some great wall dives here.
Meanwhile, Grand Bahamas Island also has a great reputation for scuba diving. The Underwater Explorer Society (UNEXSO) has been in business for over 50 years and is considered the pioneer in shark feeding. They introduced hand feed of sharks in 1993 and are still doing it. They offer a range of shark diving and also diving with dolphins.
The Out Islands – Family Islands
Once you exclude the two main islands and their few nearby cays, the rest are what is called the Out Islands. You will also see them call the Family Islands. Only one percent of these 3,000 islands are considered inhabited. Many of the “uninhabited island” do have homes on them, often a single residence for a wealthy individual. Andros is the fifth largest island in the West Indies and largest of the islands in the Bahamas, many times the size of both of the Main Islands together. While ten percent of the country’s population live on the island, it’s large size means great portions of it are not inhabited.
Eleuthera and the Exuma Cays are also destinations know for its diving. The Exuma Cays start about 35 miles southeast of Nassau. The archipelago of about 365 cays and islands are separated into three sections and they span about 80 miles north to south. Resorts here are more relax and do not have the commercialism you will find in the Main Islands.
The Bimini Islands are the closest to the US mainland and may be the most known of the Family Islands. Here you will find a mix of small resorts and large scale resort complexes. The area is also considered one of the best sport fishing destinations in the world.
Dean’s Blue Hole on Long Island Bahamas. A short distance from shore the Blue Hole drops to 663 feet (203 meters). Photograph by Christian Afonso
Diving the Family Islands
Diving the Family Islands/ Out Islands offers such a range of diving opportunities it hard to believe it is all the same country. Eleuthera and the Exuma Cays are on the eastern side of the Bahamas with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean. This can create some robust diving conditions. However, the western side of the islands are protected and can have calm conditions. This area is a favorite for those seeking a liveaboard destination.
Andros provides the diver many different options. As mentioned the Tongue of the Ocean is between this island and New Province Island. On the Andros side of the Tongue, you will find what is called the Andros Fringing Barrier Reef. This reef system is 190 miles long and is considered one of the healthiest reefs in the world. It extends from near the shoreline of Andros to the Tongue of the Ocean. Some marketing claims it is the third largest reef system in the world. This is hard to confirm as the reef does not meet the definition of a barrier reef nor a fringing reef but is somewhat a hybrid of the two. The reef’s many dive sites both along the wall and closer ashore give divers many types of dives to choose from.
Another aspect of diving Andros is that it has the largest concentration of blue holes in the world. Some of these blue holes are located on land providing an experience similar to the cenotes of Mexico. Others are located in shallow waters and allow divers to drop beyond recreational diving depths. Caver divers will find many underwater cave systems to keep themselves challenged.
Sharks are one of the big draws to the Bimini Islands. Located less than 60 miles from Florida, it is on the deep side of the Florida barrier reef. This deep water is a migratory route for many shark species including hammerheads and great whites. Florida has made shark feeding illegal in the states waters so many of the Florida dive operators have relocated its shark feeding to the waters off Bimini islands. Other large pelagic are found here and the wall diving is incredible.
You can spend years diving the Out Islands and still be amazed what you can find. The many shallow coral reefs and cays have created thousands of ship wrecks many still waiting to be discovered. Wall dives, ship wrecks, caves, coral reefs, drift dives are all waiting for you.
The coral wall rose from the depths of the Red Sea, a vast and multicolor canvas brimming with sea life. I swam alongside it for 200 feet, past tangled branches, swaying ferns and brain-like spheres, and then dove toward the ocean floor. A school of black-and-yellow-stripe angelfish darted around me, while a grouper the size of a Smart car lumbered past. Rising toward the surface, I spotted a silver barracuda hovering just below the water line. Abruptly the wall ended, and I rounded the corner to confront a netherworld of rusting cables, ropes, labyrinthine corridors and cabins, and a barnacle-covered anchor.
The dive site I had been exploring for an hour was no natural formation, but the side of an Ethiopian battleship. For the past quarter-century, this corroding wreck has lain on the bottom of the harbor of Massawa, Eritrea’s main port city, slowly colonized by marine life. (The barracuda, my boat captain told me, was one of seven that frequent the sunken ship.) Rebels of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front bombarded and sank the vessel in 1990, during the last bloody months of Eritrea’s three-decade-long independence war against Ethiopia. The rusting bow and the remnants of its gunwales protrude above the surface, forming a beacon for divers and snorkelers.
Diving holidays are perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind when the subject of Eritrea arises. This impoverished nation in the Horn of Africa — bordered by Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan and the Red Sea — was once considered among the continent’s brightest hopes. But after two decades of repression, international isolation and a forced military conscription program that has driven hundreds of thousands of young people out of the country, it has earned a reputation as the “North Korea of Africa.” In 2016, a United Nations report accused Eritrea of “crimes against humanity,” citing the imprisonment and torture of dissidents. Its leaders have been sanctioned by the United Nations for providing aid to Al Shabaab, the Islamic terrorist group in Somalia. (The United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea reported in 2012 that the government, under international pressure, had ended its direct support of the group.) Visitors have been few and far between. According to the government guides I spoke to, the country received fewer than 1,000 tourists in 2015.
Yet despite its myriad problems, Eritrea is generally safe, though it’s best to check the State Department’s travel website for updated information on travel and security (see below). Its Red Sea coast offers some of the finest snorkeling and scuba diving in the world. The warm waters of the Dahlak Archipelago — a scattering of more than 120 islands, only four of them inhabited, lying just north of Massawa — abound with jellyfish, barracuda, manta rays, parrotfish, red snappers, coral fish, puffer fish, clown fish and more than 200 types of corals. Moreover, unlike the deeper, cooler waters elsewhere in the Red Sea, Eritrea’s shallow, and therefore hotter, waters have created corals capable of adapting to temperature extremes. This unique environment, marine biologists believe, could provide a living laboratory to help endangered coral reefs around the world survive in the face of global warming.
I first visited Massawa in 1993, just after Eritrea formally declared its independence, as Africa bureau chief for Newsweek, then returned three years later, when the media and Western donors were still touting the country as a success story. I hired a dive boat and a guide and for two days explored the pristine reefs of the Dahlak Archipelago, then just beginning to attract tourists.
Two decades later, on a return visit last July, I again ventured to the coast, curious to see how Massawa had fared under Eritrea’s harsh dictatorship, and what was left of the diving industry that, in the 1990s, had seemed poised to grow.
I started my journey in Asmara, the 7,628-foot-high capital, a charming, faded city filled with crumbling Art Deco movie theaters and cappuccino bars that date to Italy’s 50-year colonization of Eritrea. (The British threw out the Italians in 1941.) A permit is needed to visit Massawa, obtainable at a hole-in-the-wall office on Harnet Avenue, Asmara’s main drag. There, I met a guide named Thomas, who was trying to secure permission for a dozen Chinese road engineers.
As we waited for the office to open, he lamented Eritrea’s ravaged economy and the open-ended conscription program. “The prime years of people’s lives are being lost,” he told me. He had used his connections to secure a dead-end posting in a ministry instead of army service, but still dreamed of fleeing. “I think about escaping, every day, but now I realize I missed my chance,” he said, as an official showed up on his moped two hours late and unlocked the door. “It’s too late. The walls have gone up.”
I hired a taxi at a downtown stand, and at 8:30 the next morning, the driver, Zaki, picked me up at my hotel. It was Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, and the streets of this small city were deserted. We drove past the Ethiopian war cemetery, fields of cactus and a herd of camels, and then the Asmara escarpment came into view: a barrier of acacia-speckled mountains that extends almost to the Red Sea. Cyclists clad in red-and-white Lycra worked their way around the hairpin turns; the pop music of Mahmoud Ahmed, an Amharic singer from Ethiopia, blared from Zaki’s CD player. After two hours — and a drop of nearly 8,000 feet — we reached the sandy coastal plain. A quintet of captured Ethiopian tanks marked the entrance to Massawa.
We crossed a causeway and arrived at the Dahlak Hotel, an Italian-owned colossus that decades ago was considered Massawa’s finest. Now it was deserted. The marble-tile staircases, Ottoman-style doorways and palatial salons hinted at the hotel’s 1970s-era grandeur. But my $88-a-night second-floor room — overlooking the bombed-out seaside palace of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie — had corroding fixtures, a sagging mattress and a broken toilet seat. Entering the saltwater pool, I slipped on the thick layers of algae that covered the steps and nearly lacerated my feet kicking off the barnacle-encrusted wall. The pool floor was a moonscape of ripped up tiles and exposed mud underneath.
Late that afternoon the hotel clerk put me in touch with Abdullah, a grizzled boat captain who spoke some Italian but no English. A friendly English-speaking Eritrean from Asmara who was sitting at the outdoor cafe offered to help me make the deal. The logistics, I quickly learned, had grown complicated. Dahlak Kebir Island, the archipelago’s main attraction, was now off limits to tourists, Abdullah said. Instead he proposed a daylong scuba-diving trip to Dessie Island, not far from Dahlak, for 16,000 nakfas, or $1,020, about five times what I had paid two decades earlier.
“I have no business,” Abdullah explained, pointing to five scuttled dive boats moored across Massawa harbor that had constituted his fleet during better times. “Everything is gone.” Abdullah was open to negotiation, but instead I opted for a half-day snorkeling and beach trip around Green Island, just beyond the harbor. The cost was a far more reasonable $200.
The next morning, with the temperature pushing 95 degrees, I met Abdullah on the dock. Two Eritreans to whom I had been introduced the day before — Lydia, my taxi driver Zaki’s sister, and her boyfriend, Berhane, a Massawa-born émigré living in Norway who returns home several times a year — joined me for the adventure. They had packed an ice chest with cold Asmara beers, which we loaded onto the skiff.
As we puttered past the loading docks and cranes of the silent port, Berhane added his voice to the many others I had heard lamenting the country’s collapse. “There are no enterprises and no construction. The government makes it impossible for you, so what else can you do but leave?” he told me. Ten of his 12 siblings had fled abroad. “For many, drowning in the sea is a better option them staying here.” Yet Massawa was his home, he said, and Lydia lived here with her two young sons — and so he felt obliged to return.
Ten minutes after leaving the pier, Abdullah cast the anchor overboard. I strapped on my mask, snorkel and fins, and leapt off the boat. Instantly the harsh realities of Eritrea dissolved in a swirl of color and motion. The water was warm and clear, and I hovered above an extensive coral garden — a “Finding Nemo” tableau. Long-beaked parrotfish, big-eyed squirrelfish, translucent blue disc-shaped surgeonfish, and huge angelfish in a dozen patterns nibbled on brightly colored coral and darted through sea anemones. Schools of tetras and black mollies swept past. I chased a blue-spotted stingray, keeping a safe distance, until it darted beneath a rock, only its poisonous spine protruding from its sanctuary. After an hour spent exploring several of these coral gardens, I climbed back aboard the boat, and we headed toward Green Island. The Asmara escarpment — barren and dun colored — rose just beyond the shore. I walked along a beach alive with hermit crabs. The entire beach seemed to be in motion, tiny white conch shells skittering across the sand.
At dusk that evening I walked by myself down a causeway into Massawa’s Old City. I had been here 20 years before, and remembered jostling with crowds in a square filled with fish restaurants and outdoor tables. Now, wandering down deserted alleys, past mosques and crumbling archways, I searched in vain for the square. Two young couples sat on stools in the dirt courtyard of a private home. One of the women, who spoke some English, invited me to join them. I asked where all the people had gone. “They have all left — for Europe,” she replied. “Do you want to go, too?” I asked. “The boys do, because they are both in the army, but I don’t know,” she said.
She directed me to one of a handful of restaurants still open: Salam, on a dirt square opposite a liquor shop that was illuminated by a string of orange lights for Eid al-Fitr. Two Eritrean diaspora families visiting from the United States — 20 in each group — sat at tables in front.
I ordered the sea bass, and it came quickly to my table, butterflied and grilled with paprika, served with flaky and charred flat bread. It was crisp, spicy and utterly delicious. I paid the bill and walked through the now-darkened streets, past splashes of light from a couple of grocery stores. Then I reached the causeway, and followed a set of abandoned railway tracks back to the Dahlak Hotel.
“It’s a very primal, primal fear,” Dr. Andrew Pitkin says. “Being in a small space filled with water. It absolutely horrifies people.”
It’s a fear that Pitkin understands, but does not share. He’s grown comfortable in some of earth’s most inhospitable places: Underwater caves that are more than 300 feet deep and several miles from any surface opening.
Pitkin is part of a small fraternity of explorer-level cave divers. He and his colleague Brett Hemphill, with the nonprofit Karst Underwater Research group, have mapped miles of previously unexplored caves, scouting the Swiss-cheese architecture of Florida’s underground springs, all while pushing the boundaries of endurance and human imagination.
“It’s a deep dark place,” Pitkin observes. “The typical reaction is, ‘You would never catch me doing that.’”
FLORIDA’S MOST NOTORIOUS CAVE
On a warm winter morning, Pitkin and Hemphill sit on a wooden platform near the entrance to one of Florida’s most notorious and lethal caves: Eagle’s Nest. Its entrance – a placid pond – looks as benign as a Florida swimming hole.
Located deep in the woods of Hernando County, Eagle’s Nest claimed the lives of two experienced divers last October. Last month – just days after the men spoke to First Coast News – another diver was killed, marking the 11th known death at Eagle’s Nest.
“Whenever there’s a cave diving fatality, the general public will go, ‘Oooh, I would never do that! So close it,’” Hemphill notes.
The state did close the site between 1999 to 2003. It was reopened at the urging of divers. However, calls to close it again surfaced after the Christmas 2013 deaths of Darrin Spivey, 35, and his 15-year-old son. The October 2016 deaths of Patrick Peacock and Chris Rittenmeyer, both experienced divers, prompted an online petition urging Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to close or regulate it. And on Jan. 8, Charles Odom died while surfacing from a dive.
“How many more lives need to be lost for this place to be closed?” asks the Change.org petition.
“It’s natural to want to blame something – ‘the evil cave’ – for what happened,” Pitkin says. “But it’s not appropriate, any more than it’s appropriate to blame a mountain someone falls off.”
Pitkin notes that nearly 300 people have died trying to summit Mount Everest, but nobody is pushing to close that natural wonder.
“They say ‘It’s a mountain, what do you expect?” Pitkin says.
EXPERIENCED DIVERS: THE CAVE IS SAFE WITH PROPER TRAINING
Deadly to some, Eagle’s Nest isn’t even all that challenging to the most experienced divers like Pitkin and Hemphill.
“It’s like a stroll in the park for us, really,” Pitkin says. “If you know what you’re doing, it’s as safe as any other cave.”
The problem, they say, is few divers really do know what they’re doing. Caves are not simply “next level” dives for the scuba-certified. The overhead environment of a cave like Eagle’s Nest means there is only one way out. That exit can be hard to find, even with a guide wire.
The caves are pitch black. And while some portions are so narrow divers must squeeze through, other sections are large enough to drive a tractor-trailer through. They are also full of rushing water, with currents strong enough that that divers use underwater scooters to pull them along. Every finstroke can kick up silt, turning the crystal-clear caves into blind alleys.
Take a timelapse tour through a portion of Eagle’s Nest, described as “the Mount Everest” of underwater caves. Video: Andrew Pitkin
HOURS OF DECOMPRESSION
Divers can also get out of their depth easily, and those using ordinary dive gear (open-circuit scuba) are at risk of nitrogen narcosis, which causes severe mental impairment. Even rising to the surface can be dangerous, so divers must decompress. If not, a quick ascent can cause air bubbles to bloom in the bloodstream, leading to paralysis or even death.
“The best way to explain it is if you have a two-liter bottle of pop,” Hemphill explains. “You shake it up, you never see the bubbles because it’s under pressure. But the moment you open the top, you see those bubbles form. We become those vessels underwater.”
To help with decompression, Pitkin and Hemphill use rebreathers, which recycle unused oxygen and add in helium. The so-called closed circuit scuba allows them to stay under for as long as 20 hours. Long dives come with their own hazards – particularly fatigue – and require extended decompression times. Every 15 minutes the divers spend underwater can require a full hour of decompression.
“A dive may only be two to three hours, but because it was two to three hours at 300 feet, we have to do another 10 to 12 hours or so of decompression,” Pitkin explains. “That’s a lot of sitting around not doing much, but it’s simple physics. We can’t change that.”
None of these tangible hazards even factor in panic, which some people begin to experience just hearing about these dives. Pitkin says a gradual and reasoned approach to diving helps them prepare for the unexpected.
“We have a healthy fear of the environment,” he says. “Fear may be a strong word, but profound respect.”
Experienced divers, Brett Hemphill and Andrew Pitkin explain why divers need to decompress
RECOVERING BODIES
Do they have cave diving nightmares? Both men insist they do not, but some real life moments are close enough.
Because cave diving is so specialized and potentially hazardous, it’s beyond the skill-set of ordinary law enforcement dive teams. Both Pitkin and Hemphill are trained recovery divers. They are able to document a scene and bring bodies to the surface, according to law enforcement guidelines.
Hemphill has had to use that grim skill set several times, including at Eagle’s Nest.
“It doesn’t really affect you until you get home, and you go to bed and wake up and see your kids the next day,” Hemphill says. “For me, it’s helped me. I don’t want to be that person.”
The divers recover bodies at their own expense, which can cost thousands of dollars, depending on the length and intensity of the dive. Given the difficulty of navigating some cave passages, the work of bringing up a body can be both physically and emotionally taxing.
“You’ve also got to be a very competent diver to get to the place where those people are and sometimes that’s not a very straightforward place,” Pitkin says. “It may be very deep. It may be very far back. It may be in a very difficult part of the cave.”
Such was the case with the October deaths of Patrick Peacock and Chris Rittenmeyer, who explored a section of cave first discovered by Pitkin. According to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, the divers made it 1,300 feet into the cave before running into trouble. They say Peacock shed his tanks – presumably because he got stuck – and the two men attempted to exit while ‘buddy breathing.”
“He had left his rebreather, his open-circuit scuba, and his buoyancy compensation, literally left it laying in the dirt completely intact, completely functioning,” Hemphill says. “At that point, they made an attempt to exit, with one diver 100 percent impaired.”
Their bodies were found 550 feet from the entrance, just shy of where they’d staged a spare tank of oxygen.
“They very nearly made it, which was one of the saddest things about the whole episode,” Pitkin says. “His buddy stayed with him, and tried to help him the whole way. And finally, they both ran out [of air].”
“IT WOULD BE TRAGIC IF IT WAS CLOSED”
The reputation of Eagle’s Nest can make it a target for those who would like to close it. Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis says he’s familiar with the Change.org petition, but doesn’t favor it.
“I think it would be tragic if it was closed,” he says. “It’s alluring, much like mountain climbing, to be one of very few people who’ve ever seen that.”
For Hemphill and Pitkin, the beauty of the caves is certainly a draw, as is the thrill of exploration. But they are also at work. Karst Underwater Research maps caves and measures water flow, data they then provide to the state’s Water Management Districts. It’s information they hope helps protect the state’s fragile underwater caves, which are home to the state’s primary drinking water supply, the Floridan Aquifer.
“Everything we do – exploration, survey, documentation, photography, whatever it happens to be – that’s important information,” Hemphill says. “In the world we live in, truly the best way to protect something is to document it.”
Hawaii is one of the most stunning locations on the planet, both on land and under the water. Located 2,500 miles away from the nearest continent, Hawaii is the most remote archipelagos on the planet. As Hawaii is so remote, this means more encounters with species that you wouldn’t normally see in other places around the world. The best thing about diving in the waters surrounding Hawaii and its islands is that no dive is the same. In addition, visibility is pretty much excellent all year round. As well as great visibility, there are many species endemic to Hawaii, so this can provide one-off experiences to those who have never visited these waters before.
Where is Hawaii?
Top 6 Dive Sites In Hawaii
Manta Ray Night Dive, Kailua Kona
Manta Ray, Hawaii
Listed as one of the top dive sites and experiences on nearly every top 10 dive sites list there is, the Manta Ray Night Dive is an experience like none-other. Large lights are built into the ocean floor, which attract unbelievable amounts of plankton to the area, which in turn provides a smorgasbord for the majestic Manta Rays of Kona, Hawaii. However, watch out because the Mantas like to come so close to you that you usually have to duck out the way, before they whack into you. This is nature in all its glory and if you’re traveling to Hawaii, then make sure you don’t miss out on this unbelievable experience.
Sea Tiger Wreck, West of Waikiki, Honolulu
Surgeonfish, Hawaii
The Sea Tiger is a former Chinese trading vessel that was confiscated in the early 1990’s for carrying 90 plus illegal immigrants into Hawaii. The Sea Tiger was then purchased by ‘Voyager Submarines’, cleaned up and then sunk as a part of a dive enrichment effort. The wreck stretches approximately 45 meters and boasts some of the most spectacular sights.
With the plethora of marine species that have made this wreck their home, its pretty hard not to see why this dive site made it to our top 6 list. Residents of this wreck includes; 6ft sea turtles, white tip reef sharks, moray eels, eagle rays and huge schools of fish, just to name a few.
Divers are able to penetrate the wreck with the correct dive certifications, entering through the cargo holds and bridge. Even though there is some miner degradation, the Sea Tiger is still in relatively good shape, making it an amazing experience for wreck diving enthusiasts.
Back Wall of Molokini Crater, Maui
Stunning Coral, Hawaii
This spectacular dive site often has a slight current, however it’s more or an intermediate to advanced dive site due to its unique ledges and wall drop off. This is a great spot to enjoy a leisurely drift dive. Due to its depths and lack of a bottom, the visibility reaches well over 30m, which is great for seeing wildlife including sharks, manta rays, dolphins and even whales during certain seasons.
The Forbidden Island, Niihau
Rainbow Fish, Hawaii
This amazing dive location can only be accessed from late spring through to the beginning of autumn, as the winter brings swells that are too big to take on as a diver. This is a dive for experienced divers only. There are a number of dive spots at this location, from relaxed dives over 5m of pristine and beautiful corals to walls that drop below 60m. You’ll find spinner dolphins and even monk seals at this location as well as some rare species of fish and plenty of stunning coral.
The Cathedrals, Lanai
Turtle, Hawaii
If you ask any diver who has been to Hawaii, what they would class as a great dive location, the Cathedrals is usually their answer. The depth of this location is around 18 to 20 meters, visibility is excellent and every level of diver can enjoy this dive. The two pinnacles that form the Cathedrals can be used as a great wall dive, as well as providing stunning arches and exciting caves to explore. The caverns roofs have heights of up to 6m and are covered in lava rock that lets in little bits of light from the surface, similarly to a stained glass window.
Corsair, Oahu
The Corsair airplane wreck is found roughly 3 miles away from the Hawaii Kai marina. It sits in 35m of stunning blue pacific waters and is in an upright position. Due to its location, the waters are quite rough, so this is for advanced divers only. The plane sank in 1948 and was originally on route from Pearl Harbor when the captain noticed the fuel gauge was going down quite quickly. He thought it was a faulty gauge and decided to continue on with his journey, when the plane suddenly began to splutter. The captain managed to land the plane safely in the water and it then sank with no damage. The captain was later rescued.
Divers are able to penetrate this wreck, however be aware that the yellow margin moray eels like to make this wreck their home, and are not keen on scuba diving invaders. Larger marine life also like to hang out around this airplane wreck with stingrays, sharks, tiger sharks, rays, manta rays and even during certain seasons, whales like to swim by. This is an excellent dive site that should not be missed, if you’re planning a trip to Hawaii.
Hawaii
There are so many amazing dive sites found around the islands of Hawaii, so if we have missed any off this list, please let us know about them in the comment box below!
A British man has died while scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef in the third death in as many days in waters surrounding the natural wonder.
The 60-year-old man was diving on Agincourt Reef near the popular tourist resort of Port Douglas when emergency services were called on Friday.
He was rescued from the water after being seen with his breathing regulator out of his mouth, the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators said.
The great Barrier Reef (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The company’s executive director, Col McKenziem said: “After an extended effort with no response, the diver was declared dead.”
He had been a passenger on a Quicksilver tour boat and was diving with another person for the second time that day, when he was found on the ocean floor at a depth of 15m.
A doctor who was flown to the reef gave the man CPR on the Silver Sonic vessel and used a defibrillator, but he could not be resuscitated.
Mr McKenzie said: “Accidents like this are a tragedy for the surviving family members, the crew and the passengers.”
The Silver Sonic has operated for 11 years, carrying 230,000 divers without a fatality, according to local authorities.
The Great Barrier Reef – In Pictures
The man, a certified diver from England, was travelling with his wife.
His death came after two French tourists – Jacques Goron, 76, and Danielle Franck, 74 – died while snorkelling on Michaelmas Cay, near Cairns, on Wednesday.
They were spotted floating in the water by staff working for diving company Passions of Paradise, chief executive Scotty Garden said.
The couple, among a French group of 21 people, had “pre-existing medical conditions and were accompanied by a guide when they were in the water”, he added.
Queensland Police said their deaths were not believed to be suspicious, with a cardiologist telling the Australian Broadcasting Corporation jellyfish stings may have triggered cardiac arrest.
If your idea of a great vacation involves adventure, adrenaline, and taking a break from the ordinary, then the Caribbean islands are calling your name. While the region’s pristine white sand beaches and turquoise waters tend to call to mind images of lounging on the beach with a colorful cocktail in hand, the islands are also a playground for adventure sports enthusiasts.
We’ve teamed up with global cruise line Royal Caribbean to highlight eight unforgettable adventure sports that are sure to make your next island getaway nothing short of epic. Whether you’re an experienced thrill seeker or a newbie adventurer, you don’t want to miss these experiences on your next Caribbean vacation.
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Brushing up on your superhero skills? You’ll want to add kiteboarding to your arsenal of adventure sports. Blending elements of windsurfing and wakeboarding, kiteboarding traces its origins all the way back to China circa the 13th century, when sails were used to propel travelers’ canoes. Several centuries and technical innovations later, kiteboarding today ranks among the most exhilarating sports, with its combination of high-speed surfing and serious airtime for jumps and tricks. While the sport requires a certain amount of physical fitness to operate the kite and board, beginners can get the hang of it by taking a lesson taught by a local expert.
With its smooth cross-shore trade winds and warm waters, Barbados offers great kiteboarding for all levels. There are several kiteboarding schools located around the island, and beginners will do well at the sheltered Freights-Bay, while experienced kiteboarders will love the wavy conditions at Silver Rock and Long Beach.
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Taking sci-fi dreams to new heights, the flyboard is a techie thrill seeker’s dream come true. Powered by pressurized water connected by hose to a nearby jetski, flyboards let their riders soar more than 25 feet above the water—and even dive below the surface and shoot back up, superhero-style. Marty McFly would be proud.
Give the see-it-to-believe-it sport a try in St. Maarten, where the protected waters of Simpson Bay provide a great backdrop for trying your hand at flying. Check out Flyboard St. Maarten for rentals and lessons, and make sure someone in your crew is positioned onshore to take lots of pictures of your crazy feats. After soaring high above Simpson Bay, be sure to wander through the colorful, busy streets and sample the delicious French and Creole flavors that define St. Maarten’s cuisine.
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There’s just something undeniably cool about surfing. In 1778, Captain James Cook recorded the first written description of the sport. He described a surfer as someone with the “most supreme pleasure while he was driven so fast and smoothly by the seas.” While mastering the art of surfing takes balance and practice, even beginners can experience the supreme pleasure of catching a wave along the many surf-friendly beaches in the Caribbean.
Gentle trade winds, miles of pristine coastline and hundreds of offshore reefs: Puerto Rico is home to world-class surf that attracts professional wave riders from around the globe. There are also plenty of spots mere mortals will be able to surf too, located near charming beach towns like Rincon and Aguadilla. Rent a board, book a lesson, and get ready to hang ten.
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If flyboarding or surfing feels a little too risky for your crew, try parasailing: a great alternative for kids and anyone who may not be an athlete, but still wants an ocean adventure. Parasailing is the equivalent of a great beach day with an even better view: you and your companion will be strapped into a harness on the back of a small boat and then rise high above the ocean waves as a colorful parachute propels you forward. There are plenty of ways to experience the underwater adventures of the Caribbean, but parasailing is the best way to take in a truly unique bird’s-eye view of the stunning scenery.
The lush natural beauty of St. Kitts makes a perfect vista for parasailing. Take in the natural beauty of this mountain island as well as historic sites like Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a former British fortress now preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Stand up paddleboarding (SUP) is perfect for those eager to put their upper body strength and balance to the test. SUP is quite a core workout even in flat waters. If you’ve mastered your balance on the board, try a yoga session at sea. The budding sport combines yoga sequences with the fluidity of the water for a balance-enhancing workout.
Aruba is a great place to try SUP and SUP yoga. Check out the calm waters of Palm Beach for rental options and great conditions to practice your balance. Once you’ve mastered your downward seadog, celebrate at one of the plentiful bars and restaurants along the west side of the island.
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Combining elements of water skiing, surfing and snowboarding, wakeboarding is all about balance. Riding on a short board towed behind a motorboat, wakeboarders can catch impressive air by leaping over the waves while performing spins and tricks. Newbies can just enjoy the thrill of getting up on the board and zooming past the shoreline.
Wakeboard rental shops can be found on several Caribbean islands, and you can’t go wrong catching some air along the coast of St. Lucia. With its stunning volcanic beaches and the twin peaks of the Pitons as your backdrop, there’s no shortage of postcard-worthy landscapes to take in as you cruise behind your guide boat. Beginners will get the hang of wakeboarding techniques with a quick lesson before grabbing the tow rope.
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Scuba divers love the Caribbean, and for good reason. From warm waters ideal for coral reefs to thrive to the hundreds of species of marine life that make their home in these incredible underwater environments, scuba divers will feel like kids in a candy shop amongst the Caribbean’s many reefs. And while certification requires divers to master the sport’s breathing techniques and complete about five offshore dives, the effort is well worth it.
Head to Honduras for some of the world’s best dive sites. Located 30 miles off the coast, the Honduran island of Roatan boasts some of the most diverse coral reefs in the whole Caribbean. From undulating sea fans to giant barrel sponges to turtles, stingrays and even sharks, a dive into the shallow reefs along Roatan is an unforgettable experience.
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Originally created thousands of years ago by Eskimos for hunting and fishing expeditions, modern kayaks let you get up close and personal with aquatic life. Nearly anyone can paddle around calm waters in a kayak, making it a perfect entry-level sport for new adventurers and families. Just sit down, grab your paddle and life jacket, and off you go!
The pristine coastline of Curacao is a perfect spot for your crew to kayak. From bay tours that take you to great snorkel locations to kayak trips through the Spanish Water (Curacao’s largest lagoon), there’s no shortage of stunning sites to take in as you skim along the water’s surface. Or try a night kayak tour to experience the thrill of the ocean by moonlight!
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Get your adrenaline pumping and make your next island vacation unforgettable by trying a new sport. Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line with ships that feature FlowRider surf simulators, zip lines, rock climbing walls and even RipCord® by iFLY® sky-diving simulators for an endless array of memorable onboard experiences! Royal Caribbean is the perfect choice for thrill seekers looking to take their travels to the next level, so book your next awe-inspiring adventure by visiting RoyalCaribbean.com today.
Pulling on their scuba gear and flippers at a swimming pool in Brussels, Nicolas Mouchart and his wife Florence are not just going diving – they’re going out for dinner.
Lowering themselves to the floor of the pool, an especially deep one built to train scuba divers, they swim to one end where their restaurant awaits, five meters (16 feet) below the surface.
“The Pearl” is a two-meter wide white sphere tethered close to the pool’s floor. The diners jettison their weighted belts before swimming underneath and up into the pod that looks like a cross between a lunar landing craft and a giant spaceman’s helmet.
Food is served by expert scuba divers who deliver foie gras, lobster salad and champagne in waterproof cases before leaving the diners peering out of the portholes, enjoying the strange tranquillity of eating in an air pocket, completely submerged.
“We are launching a new era of restaurants,” said John Beernaerts, who founded the NEMO33 pool in the Belgian capital a decade ago.
The restaurant, where an underwater meal costs 99 euros ($106) per person, took more than a year to build and multiple attempts were needed to perfect the design, mechanics and food delivery system.
“It was a wonderful experience,” said Mouchart, 41, his hair still wet after the return swim through the warm – 33 degrees Celsius (91 Fahrenheit) – water to the pool side.
“It was the first time in our life that we ate underwater, which was really fun. It’s a unique dinner and we will remember this all our life.”
Underwater cameras provide an amazing service. They take pictures UNDER THE WATER! Underwater cameras that keep-on taking pictures under water provide an even MORE AMAZING service in my book. I wish that I could say that the SeaLife Micro 2.0 64GB camera is “MORE AMAZING” than other underwater cameras, but I can’t; can’t do that because the SeaLife camera broke and malfunctioned on us while scuba diving in the Cayman Islands. The real kick in the nuts here is that the SeaLife Micro 2.0 64GB underwater camera along with a SeaDragon 2500 light system, were Christmas presents for my son. Made me feel bad to have gifted such a POS camera to my kid. Maybe I should have spent more on his gift to get an underwater camera that actually works for more than about one hundred photos? -Yes, I should have done more research before spending around $1,000 USD on the camera and light combo.
Thank goodness we had our trusted GoPro cameras with us at the time or else, we would have been S.O.L. when it came to getting some cool underwater shots on the many scuba dives during our dive trip, like on the Kittiwake wreck for example. Stingray City for another example. Dive sites that are very special and cost a load of cash to get to when you consider the aggregate vacation price.
Check out these pictures of the leaky housing that caused the diving death of our SeaLife Micro 2.0 64GB underwater camera:
NOTE: The deepest depth the camera went to on our trip until its death the second day into our dive trip was about sixty five feet. -Not very deep!
Be VERY CAREFUL when it comes to buying underwater and dive cameras! I will be staying away from SeaLife cameras from now on or until I’m comfortable that they’re making a better product. SeaLife Micro 2.0 64GB FAIL.
saltydog@sd
Here’s how much the SeaLife Micro 2.0 64GB costs.
Condensation kills!
Are those water droplets INSIDE the camera housing?! YES, those are water droplets INSIDE the camera housing! Dammit!!!
What are Dive Badges? -They’re fun records of your dive achievements! Like our visual Dive Logs, Dive Badges enable viewers to very quickly understand where you’ve been with your scuba diving career. Check it out, they’re FREE!
saltydog@sd
And if you’re a Boy Scout, check this out! CLICK HERE!
