Best Military Dive locations

[YetiUSMC]

I figured that with our own little sub group here, we can discuss some of the great locations we have had the opportunities to dive. Lets associate our replies with base locations. Also any helpful travel tips, like Space-A available or not, base dive locker, divers available from the locker, rental gear availability etc. Maybe this will help some of us who have the opportunity to travel TAD/TDY between bases a general idea of the dive situation. I look forward to hearing from you all!

[RICHinNC]

Great idea! Are they still doing Space A flights?

[Tom Smedley]

You are in Japan so Space-A flights to Andersen Air Base Guam should be a snap. There are also Civic Action presences on Chuuk, Yap, and Palau. Those folks have to be resupplied so there may be Space-A opportunities there too. But - if you get to Guam the flights to those locations are not so expensive. The cost then would be hotel/dive packages.

Get on the Philippine Divers forums. A flight from Tokyo to Manila should be affordable.

[randman_82]

Any where in North Carolina is good. I am at Fort Bragg and I travel to Wilmington to Dive. There are a lot of quarries around the area to.

[YetiUSMC]

Space A is still going on. The only problem is taking enough leave so you don't end up being UA when you get bumped for a higher priority traveller. I think this summer I am going to take some leave and dive Okinawa for a couple days. There seems to be plenty of spots there that look absolutely incredible. The diving here seems to be tough to locate, and then when you do find the place that looks good, the language barrier can be a bit difficult to overcome. My friend is going to Saipan in a week. I will let you all know what she finds there!

[Baracuda Smile]

Space A is still going on. The only problem is taking enough leave so you don't end up being UA when you get bumped for a higher priority traveller. I think this summer I am going to take some leave and dive Okinawa for a couple days. There seems to be plenty of spots there that look absolutely incredible. The diving here seems to be tough to locate, and then when you do find the place that looks good, the language barrier can be a bit difficult to overcome. My friend is going to Saipan in a week. I will let you all know what she finds there!

We have a channel on TV that lists all of hops leaving out of Okinawa. This channel is channel 17 and is on in the MAC terminal. I agree that Okinawa has been listed as one of the top 5 dive spots in the world. From the main island there are around 150 shore dives, and then you can spend between $40 - $150 and dive from a boat to either off shore or to Keramas. Diving is not difficult as often you can walk out the front of your hotel and find a dive shop. I have lived here since 1997 and have not had much of a problem with the language barrier. If you are not adventurious then you can book with Reef Encounters which has an English speaking staff. There are hops going to Guam from Okinawa about once a week. From Guam it is easy to pay for a flight to Siapan.

[Dive Turkey]

I dont have any travel tips to offer because I go where the ship goes. However I can tell you some spectacular dive locations since we just got home on the 11th of this month from deployment. On the way over we dove with Deep Blue Divers in Souda Bay, Greece. We dove the Cathedral, I recomend this dive to everyone. The cathedral has an entrance much like a gothic cathedral with about a 50 foot tunnel that leads into a large room that is sunlit from about a ten foot hole above. We were the first divers there that dove with that company this year, the water was still 60 degrees back in early March. Well worth it though, there were amphoras inside the cathedral and a few bright green eels.
The next spot I dove was Fujairah, UAE. If you have only seen the bad side of Fujairah I know what you're thinking. Dont worry there is actually a really nice resorty part of Fujairah. We had a blast diving with Al Boom Diving. Really nice corals and tons of fish, they wouldnt leave us alone, clown fish that want to get in your face. There were so many eels out there too that I couldnt have kept count if I wanted. There were albino eels too, I dont know the name of them but they were all white, really cool. We saw several cuttle fish too, one of them actually let me touch it without jetting away.
On the way home we stopped in Turkey. We dove in Marmaris, Turkey with Divers Delight. Those guys were great no kidding. The diving there was pretty good, some old amphoras and other ancient pots on the bottom, not so much sea life. It made it all worth it because they actually cooked us lunch in the kitchen on the boat. Some rice and chicken with vegetables and bread, it was really great. Then when we got back to the dock they took us to the bar and had a few drinks with us.

[uncleavi]

My favorite place was when I was a Peacekeeper in the Sinai.
We were right on the Red Sea and I loved it.
I was very fortunate to have done that tour.

[Baracuda Smile]

I just got back from an Okinawan diving vaction. I left on 17 Jul 08 and flew to Ishigaki, (We stayed in a hotel near the ferry port) but we flew into a typhoon. That afternoon we went to Taketomi where we went searching for star sand. The typhoons in Japan are no problem as all of the buildings in Japan are made of reinforced concrete. That night the typoon passed over us. After Ishigaki we flew to Yonaguni, Japan (on the 19th of Japan) the most western island in Japan just of the coast of Taiwan. I went to dive the ruins of Yonaguni, but due to the recent conditions of the typhoon, SaWes dive shop stated that the sea conditions and the currents were to strong to dive the monument. Instead we dove just outside the port for 3 dives a day for 3 days. We stayed in the penthouse suite of the Irfume hotel on the north side of the Yonaguni. The penthouse had a Japanese bar and the bedrooms in the back. The port is on the north side of the runway. The dive boat the Shota II was a very nice dive boat with an upper deck and entry either giant stride or rolling back entry. On the back of Shota II there are two ladders to climb out on the stern. The visibility was about 20m or 60 feet. Features are the white sand bottom and numberous sea turtles. We also saw a 5' white tip shark.

On the 23rd we flew to back to Ishigaki, and then took the ferry to Iromote Island. The dive shop (Enysea) picked us up at the ferry port and took us to our bed and breakfest (Ihara Guest House). My wife and I thoughly enjoyed the guest house. The diving on Iromote was oustanding with 100' visibility. The first day I dove with 2 large manta rays, that came so close that I could of touched them. Other dives were awsome as well. The dive boat was LaRena and it can hold twenty divers. We had ten divers so it was comfortable. The water temps were 82F to 84F so I did not wear a wet suit. The hard corals were beutiful, and adbundant. The colors of the hard corals are dazzeling. There were many fish, and many caves to explore. The host of our guest house fixed us fresh lobster on the first night and constantly worked to make menu's according to our tastes. Neither my wife nor I speak but a couple of words of Japanese, and we found it easy to change flights, catch cabs, ferrys, and eat with out many language barriers. I feel I would have more problem speaking Spanish in Mexico than speaking Japanese in Japan. The Japanese (divers, hosts, and diveshops) were eager to engage us with there knowledge of English. Okinawa is truely a world class diving location.

I have been told that there is a Marine outpost on Yonaguni, can anyone confirm this?

[romad119]

Some decent freshwater diving if stationed at Fort Drum: Plenty of wrecks in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence.