Dive Vacations--Familiarity or Diversity????

[TSandM]

It's a great question and topic, John!

I feel the same tension between returning to someplace I know, and seeing something new. We go back to the Yucatan again and again, but of course, it's because what we have there simply ISN'T anyplace else. And I do enjoy the familiarity of the routine, and knowing how to get everything done -- and also, checking in with friends we have made over the years in that place.

And I enjoyed our trips to Maui, even though we dove the same sites again and again -- one of the great things about diving is that you never know when you are going to turn around and run into something amazing, even at a site where you thought you had seen it all.

But there is also nothing quite like one's first trip to a new place, where every single critter is amazing because you just haven't seen it before. I remember going to Loreto for the first time, and taking tons of photographs of the first incredibly colorful starfish I found . . . and then finding out that they were simply everywhere. A beautiful but very common species!

So we mix it up. We go back to fabulous places sometimes, and we go to new places, too. This year we will had a first time trip to the Philippines, and a first time trip to the Socorros, but we will also have a return trip to the PI and a return trip to the Yucatan. We are lucky to get to travel as much as we do.

 

[shoredivr]

What TS and M said. Both.

---------- Post added August 19th, 2014 at 09:39 PM ----------

Really missing the salt water at the moment, on a local 4 day trip diving the St Lawrence. Cold and murky! But bring wet is better than being dry any day

Wut?! Cold and murky? It's 68F in the river, that's warm!

 

[drbill]

Although I've done a few thousand dives in one location (Catalina) when I travel I look for three things (1) a destination I've never been to so I can collect footage of new species and ecosystems (Egypt and South America are on for 2015); (2) a destination in a region where I want to collect additional footage of the species I've already seen or film a few new ones.

I love knowing one area "well" (after 45 years diving Catalina there is still a lot to learn) but I love the excitement of going to new places as well. I doubt I could ever be satisfied with lots of trips to a specific Caribbean destination (any of them) since biodiversity is so much higher in Asia.