Scapa. If all goes well, I'll be headed up there next summer to dive there. That's really it for my bucket list. I've done the Coolidge. It was okay. I don't like pretty fish and reefs. I'd like to go back to Croatia, but that's it really
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That could make a good thread; might get a little contentious, but interesting. Since you brought up Australian diving, the major glorified dive destination not on my bucket list is the Great Barrier Reef! When I 1st got into scuba, it seemed the major big name destinations were the Bahamas (locally) and the Australian Great Barrier Reef.
Now, several years later, I'm finally putting the Bahamas in my sights for next year, Lord willing and providing; I've read you need to do a live-aboard to get to the better Bahamas diving, and that there's better elsewhere in the Caribbean. People talk about algae on reefs, for example. If not for a scheduling conflict I'd have tried for AquaCat this year; now I'm hoping for Blackbeard's next year.
If I understood correctly from other threads, the best of the GBR is likewise hit by live-aboard. And Australia is a long (& expensive) way from Kentucky! If I ever have the abundance of money and free time to undertake such a trek, there's Komodo, Bali, Palau, PNG and the Philippines to think about. So from a U.S. perspective (mine, anyway), the GBR's pull as a bucket list destination suffers the same drawback many others do; the competition has such a strong reputation!
For other U.S. divers (& Canadians, I suppose, since distance ought to be similar), I wonder how big a deal it is to you to hit the GBR at least once in your life? Does it move up the bucket list line because it's famous with the general public? Is there something specific there you want to see?
Richard.
I'd say my experience with what I have seen of the GBR, PNG and Indonesia is that the reef systems are comparable. IMHO a lot of people go to the GBR to say they did it... tick it off the list. I think there are indeed cheaper options with diving that is comparable. I like pretty fish and pretty corals. The reef offers both but so did the locations we went to in PNG and Indonesia. I was impressed by the pretty fish in Florida but found the reefs and corals pretty humdrum compared to Indonesia, PNG and GBR
Blue Heron Bridge was on my bucket list. It was everything it was promised to be. The muck diving in Lembeh straight was comparable. Sydney has a muck dive site called Clifton Gardens that is also quite comparable but MUCH MUCH smaller. It doesn't have tide issues at all and is shallow so you can have very long dives there too. Lots of seahorses, frogfish, cuttlefish and pipefish.. hidden stuff. Not quite the variety of Lembeh and BHB but a pretty close.
Sydney doesn't have the hard corals but some nice soft corals and really unusual fish. We get some accidental tropicals and the sponge gardens are very colourful and full of life. I would say the Pygmy Pipehorse compares well to Pygmy Seahorse. Weedy Seadragons, Red Indian Fish, Eastern Bluedevils, velvetfish, and Cuttles are just some of the attractions here. We have sites that are a nudibranch lovers dream!
Melbourne has amazing Pier Diving with Tassled anglerfish (frogfish), Weedies, velvetfish, blue ring octopus, pajama squid nudibranches and pleurobranchus the size of dinner plates. I haven't even mentioned the wreck diving!
There are so many sites in Australia that don't get a look because everyone wants to follow the crowd to dive the GBR. A lot of the options are a whole lot cheaper believe me. My advice would be to do your research and ask the locals before you go to the expanse of booking flights.
It just seems too common for people to think it will cost too much. Yep it will unless you do your homework. Homework and patience may put the seemingly impossible into your possible. I guess my opinion is "Don't discount what is in your own back yard and assume that far away is so much better." I have been amazed at just how similar the critters are in the wide spread areas I have been fortunate enough to get to dive!
After this post PNG and Australia are out of my bucket list and Raja Ampat replaces them as the high budget trip for me. The more important thing is that Lembeh is out and Blue Heron Bridge replaces it as the muck photography destination. See you saved me sooo much money! But yes what you write makes sense. After reading a lot of reviews I think I will do Fiji instead of Palau as it is cheaper.
The reefs in truk are just as good as Fiji and you have the killer wrecks
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The wrecks in Truk are their own mini-artificial reef structures, and with only 70 years of soft/hard coral growth on the more popular wrecks like the Shinkoku Maru or Fujikawa Maru, surprisingly they do compare nicely & almost rival the soft coral reefs I've seen in Fiji. . .The reefs in truk are just as good as Fiji and you have the killer wrecks
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Id like to get tech-certified with TDI advanced wreck before I do Truuk etc.
Instructor Jonathan Edwardsen.Id like to get tech-certified with TDI advanced wreck before I do Truuk etc.
Instructor Jonathan Edwardsen.
Maryland scuba diving classes and dive shop serving MD, VA, DC at Submerged - Submerged Scuba Shop in Maryland