South Pacific: |
| Cook Islands Having no expectations is the best attitude, but rest assured you’ll be welcomed by friendly smiles in whatever destination you choose amongst the Cook Islands. |
| Fiji For someone who didn’t know the area there would have been no chance of finding a way through the inside reef when we cruised over the flat and glassy surface that morning. It seemed to be a silent lake, a huge mirror for the sun. |
| Fiji: Blues Cruise in Paradise Diving from a cruise ship (you couldn’t really classify ‘The Blue Lagoon Cruises’ Yasawa Princess as a ‘boat’!) was to be a new experience for me and I was a bit uncertain as to how a luxurious cruise would cater to a dive-aholic, however my reservations were soon laid to rest; this is one cool way to dive! |
| It’s Normal on Niue There is nothing new on Niue – isn’t that great?! In a world where everything is changing faster than we could ever imagine, Niue is one of the few places on earth where life is predictable and routine – and what a wonderful routine it is!
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| Niue The flaming orange sunset silhouetted the South Pacific Sunrise as she lay at anchor off Sir Robert’s Wharf in Niue’s Alofi Harbour. The ocean passage from Beveridge Reef had been calm and peaceful. Now it was time to unload our gear and experience the hospitality of the biggest resort in the South Pacific: Niue Island.
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| French Polynesia Fakarave, Tahiti Twenty-five years diving around the world and countless hours of research were not enough to prepare me for the experience of diving in the world's second largest "pass". |
| Tonga: Jewel in the Crown There is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean that are the jewels in a royal crown. The Kingdom of Tonga is where time begins, as it straddles the international dateline across a 425 km stretch of the South Pacific ocean.
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| Tonga: Whales of Tonga How about swimming with the whales and then diving at unspoiled tropical sites with extraordinary visibility, stunning drop-offs, swim-throughs and tunnels, soft corals, dramatic walls, caves and a harbour wreck? |
| Samoa by Keith Gordon With daily flights from New Zealand and Australia, a low currency conversion, and superb natural scenic beauty, the Polynesian islands of Samoa are now a popular tourist destination. |
| Samoa ‘The colours of the fishes and corals glow against the black lava rocks,’ Patrick describes his favourite dive site . Behind us the sea was cobalt blue, turning to near purple in the depths below. |
| Solomons: Exploring the Toa Maru Through the grapevine, we had heard many stories about the Toa Maru wreck before setting foot in Gizo, and none of them were bad. Being a couple of metal heads we were looking forward to getting to know her. |
| Solomons: Matiana Caves Some of my most interesting adventures have not been planned, they have just … happened. Matiana cave, near Munda was one such event. It began in Jervis Bay, Australia, a friend told my wife Lyn and I of a cave he had heard about on his recent trip to Munda in the Solomon Islands. |
| Pitcairn Island Is that a flicker of white?
It’s hard to tell, just a gentle sea breeze, barely enough to fill any flapping canvas. The horizon and the sea seem as one - no line separating the two.
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| Vanuatu’s Wreck diving paradise For the avid wreck diver or for anyone with the slightest interest in diving on wrecks you can’t look past Vanuatu. The “President Coolidge” is synonymous with wreck diving in Vanuatu and overshadows the other great wrecks in the archipelago. Efate itself offers the largest selection of wrecks, scuttled vessels and even sunken planes.
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| Vanuatu: Diving the President Coolidge The President Coolidge in Santo is by far one of the best wreck dives I have done. With this trip being my third to her, I was just as excited as our other tour party members!
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Australia: |
 | Freediving the Coolooli Lying on its side at 48 metres, the Coolooli was hardly a deep excursion for members of this technical diving team. Their credits included a 111m dive on the Peak of Sydney wreck, a 97m dive on the Cumberland wreck, and a nine hour dive in the Cocklebiddy Cave system under the Nullabor Plains.
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| Queensland - The Capricorn and Bunker Group The Capricorn and Bunker Group of islands and reefs are located at the southern most end of the Great Barrier Reef. The group consists of eight reefs and coral cays, all of which offer fabulous reef diving. |
| Lady Elliot Island There is no question that at some times of the year the winds at Lady Elliot Island do more than just rustle a tune through the She oak needles. It’s the most southern island cay on the Great Barrier Reef
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New Zealand: |
 | Mikhail Lermontov celebrates her 20th birthday I slowly turned and glanced back to where we had come from - utter blackness! A blackness that you rarely see - there is normally always some light coming from somewhere - this blanket of complete darkness could smother you.
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| Goat Island I am, at my very heart, a flag waving Kiwi. When I am overseas it is not uncommon to find me preaching the good news from the land of the long white cloud – adventure, scenery, secret out-of-the-way places, friendly people and good times for all. |
| Poor Knights Despite the spring sunshine I felt chilled to the bone. The coffee cup I held was suffering its own mini earthquake as my hands shivered and shook, slopping the contents over the deck while I clung to its heat desperate to warm up after the last dive. |
| Port Kembla wreck dive When the First World War broke out in 1914 it didn’t take long to clear the Germans out of the Pacific, New Zealand invaded German Samoa, Australia took New Guinea and the Japanese took Tsingtao and the Marshall and Caroline Islands. |
| Waikato River The dive briefing was cut short by a long scream terminated by a loud splash. At a bend in the river a small boat was recovering the source of the scream, untangling the bungee from the jumpers’ ankles before ferrying them to the pontoon. |
| Reotahi – wild and beautiful Several years ago during a boat trip to the Poor Knights Islands I asked a Whangarei local, Warren Farrelly, about good options for shore diving. He told me... |
Asia / Pacific: |
| South China Sea Treasure It was like following a diver who, for the first time in his life, knew there was a massive treasure trove at the end of the rainbow. He was bloody hard to keep up with, his jet fins pumping as if connected to a Melbourne Cup winner.
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| New Caledonia Modern air travel is so amazing. Here I sit in absolute comfort on a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, the air minus 56 degrees C outside. I'm being served delicious food and wine, watching the earth roll by like a magic carpet, while travelling at just below the speed of sound as we chase the sun across the planet. |
| Papua New Guinea - Above and Below the Water PNG as an all round holiday destination? Yeah right! Divers are more likely than most to have been to PNG for recreational purposes. |
| Malaysia Modern air travel is so amazing. Here I sit in absolute comfort on a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, the air minus 56 degrees C outside. I'm being served delicious food and wine, watching the earth roll by like a magic carpet, while travelling at just below the speed of sound as we chase the sun across the planet. |
| The Munsoms The warm water Tsushima Current that flows off the Chinese coast bathes the south facing coast of Jeju island. This warm water can raise the south coast water temperatures to 28oCelsius. The underwater ecosystem created by the Tsushima Current is distinct from anywhere else on the island or the Korean peninsula. |
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Indian Ocean: |
| Southern Thailand... an Adventurer's Paradise The array of gorgeous soft corals and comb-like red whip corals filled my viewfinder as I moved into the entrance of a gaping cave, eaten out of the vertical reef face. The brown wall moved! Lifting my viewfinder away from my mask, I stared in disbelief.
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| Living in the Wake As the weeks pass by, the news media has turned the focus away from the Tsunami in search of the latest political bites and back stabbings. It is a sad note on our society that the news thinks that, for the most part, we have a three-week attention span for a story as horrific as the death of 266,000 people. |
The America's: |
| The Cayman Islands Imagine a place where nearly every day is like a tropical version of that movie Ground Hog Day, when you open your front door and the sun streams through to welcome yet another perfect day.
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Europe: |
| Sir Peter Blake: Visiting the Caspian Sea with the Cousteau Society You've just completed a voyage with the Cousteau Society to the Caspian Sea area. How did that come about, and what were you doing there?
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Polar Diving: |
| Antarctic Explorer Antarctic Explorer is the Cousteau Society’s latest vessel. She was built in 1989 by the company SFCN at their yard in Villeneuve la Garenne (France) for Jean-Louis Etienne, a French explorer who did polar treks and various Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
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| One day in Antarctica It was sort of orange in a weird, wrinkly way, clinging to a seaweed-carpeted ledge. The latest in vacuum cleaners … maybe! With forty five plus arms it would have the average house cleaned ‘Antarctic white’ in one minute!
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Africa: |
| The Greatest Shoal On Earth Every year a gigantic animal migration takes place on the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa. From June to August vast shoals of sardines move up the coast from the Agulhas banks south of the cape of Good Hope as far North as Durban, where they seem to move offshore and find their way back to southern waters.
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