Hi,
My husband and I are certified Advanced Open Water divers with 35+ dives and we're planning a (diving) vacation from the end of January till early February (8-9 days in total, at least 3 days of diving). We've been doing a lot of research on what places might be best around this time of the year but it's really hard to decide. We're from Colombia, living at the Caribbean coast and the diving is good here but not great (it's cheap and you can see a lot of nice fish and eels, once we even saw dolphins, but never sharks, octopuses or anything bigger). These are our options so far:
- Costa Rica, Pacific coast. I've read that the Catalina Islands are great to dive and you'll 'most likely' see big manta rays, sharks, turtles etc. I've read though that the visibility is quite crappy. I also read something about Cano island.
- Belize. The blue whole sounds interesting of course, also we're usually more interested in marine life than anything else. I've heard you can see sharks. Water could be quite cold in January though, and I've heard the visibility might not be the best around this time of the year.
- Panama. Cheap diving and I've heard Bocas del Toro is great. On the other hand, not sure if we'll really see anything different than we see in Colombia
- Galapagos. It's always been our dream to go, but I read that it's better to go between May and November, since there's much more sea life. So not sure if it would be worth it.
Which one would you pick around this time of the year? Or do you have any better recommendations? We already dove Caribbean Colombia (of course), Mexico (the Cenotes, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen) and other destinations outside of the Americas.
Thanks a lot!
My husband and I are certified Advanced Open Water divers with 35+ dives and we're planning a (diving) vacation from the end of January till early February (8-9 days in total, at least 3 days of diving). We've been doing a lot of research on what places might be best around this time of the year but it's really hard to decide. We're from Colombia, living at the Caribbean coast and the diving is good here but not great (it's cheap and you can see a lot of nice fish and eels, once we even saw dolphins, but never sharks, octopuses or anything bigger). These are our options so far:
- Costa Rica, Pacific coast. I've read that the Catalina Islands are great to dive and you'll 'most likely' see big manta rays, sharks, turtles etc. I've read though that the visibility is quite crappy. I also read something about Cano island.
- Belize. The blue whole sounds interesting of course, also we're usually more interested in marine life than anything else. I've heard you can see sharks. Water could be quite cold in January though, and I've heard the visibility might not be the best around this time of the year.
- Panama. Cheap diving and I've heard Bocas del Toro is great. On the other hand, not sure if we'll really see anything different than we see in Colombia
- Galapagos. It's always been our dream to go, but I read that it's better to go between May and November, since there's much more sea life. So not sure if it would be worth it.
Which one would you pick around this time of the year? Or do you have any better recommendations? We already dove Caribbean Colombia (of course), Mexico (the Cenotes, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen) and other destinations outside of the Americas.
Thanks a lot!