Official dive vacation thread

[Treebeard]

Tony, did you give any consideration into doing the manta ray night dive?

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by Treebeard

Tony, did you give any consideration into doing the manta ray night dive?

We did it as a snorkel 2 years ago which was pretty amazing becaus they come a lot closer to the surface than the bottom, but I think you'd get better pictures looking upwards from the bottom so I did want to do the dive this time around. Unfortunately circumstances caused us to cancel that. Basically we ran out of money. The USD exchange rate right now is brutal. :-(

[Treebeard]

Yup. We seriously looked at going to Kona this winter but the exchange rate killed that idea. Someday....

Originally Posted by Delphinus

W of money. The USD exchange rate right now is brutal. :-(

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

The USD exchange rate right now is brutal. :-(

Yep, it was 1.375 on my CC. When you're talking thousands...it escalated quickly.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

One heartbreaking thing I saw was a lot of coral bleaching. One reason I keep going back to the Big Island was just how vibrant the coral colours were, porites, pocilliporas and others, lots of pinks and yellows ...... this year so much white.

On closer inspection I could see that the coral was still alive, just bleached. So one thing we can say, with the experience we get in this hobby .. is that we know that if conditions allow, they can recover. The flipside though is that, with the experience we get in this hobby ... is that if things don't get better quickly, the potential to dieoff is also there. So it is with no small measure of mixed emotions on my part this time around.

Ugh...that's no good. I can't imagine the conditions in the ocean changing quickly to reverse the bleaching...

[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

One heartbreaking thing I saw was a lot of coral bleaching. One reason I keep going back to the Big Island was just how vibrant the coral colours were, porites, pocilliporas and others, lots of pinks and yellows ...... this year so much white.

While I'm sure there are tons of reason's for coral bleaching, there was an interesting article in DAN's Alert Diver that's a good read and a fairly seeming simple remedy if more people knew...

http://www.alertdiver.com/Sunscreens-Coral-Bleaching

[rishu_pepper]

My wife and I will be going to Okinawa, Japan in March 2016, diving at the Zamami Islands. We've never done any scuba before (taking the cert in new year), although I have done some snorkeling in Hawaii many moons ago. Really looking forward to it!

[chef]

A few years ago I had the chance to snorkel and dive the Philippines, Bali and the gili islands.
Philippines were cheap and beautiful. Tons of fish and incredible massive colonies of sps!!!! I was in boracay. For incredible sps color Bali gets my vote. The snorkeling in sanur absolutely blew my mind!!! Have fun in the Philippines!!!