One woman's journey through the world
It’s been a little more than three weeks since I arrived in Bali, one of the 17,000+ islands of Indonesia. Yet it wasn’t until a few days ago that I threw myself into the ocean. Even then, it wasn’t on Bali but on the neighboring island of Gili Trawangan. In Bali I’ve settled inland for a little while, thinking it would do me good to not be distracted by diving
When I made the decision to travel in Africa, I let diving guide me to a starting point. Tanzania and Egypt are well-known for diving but the first had elections scheduled for late October and, given a history of unrest on either side of national elections, I didn’t want to walk into riots. Egypt, similarly, would require me to do some heavy research into where it was safe and where
Something frustrating happened during my first week in Maui that means (1) I don’t have as many photos as I’d like of my dives in Hawaii over the last two weeks and (2) I’ll have to go shopping before my next dives. My camera flooded. As best I can tell, it’s now completely useless. Fortunately, I got a number of shots before that happened and had the GoPro for a
Diving was what drew me to the Philippines and although I stayed as long as I did for many reasons, it remains the primary. It’s also a major reason I want to return. I didn’t make it to well-known Apo Reef or Tubataha, to the slightly-lesser-known sites of Mactan, Anda, Camiguin, and so many others. Nor did I give Coron or Puerto Galera the time they each deserve. I’ve posted
Apo Island – not to be confused with Apo Reef – is one of those places some travelers think should be kept a secret. That if too many people know about it, too many tourists will come and ruin it. But like Mrauk-U in Myanmar, I think it deserves to be known and I honestly don’t think the hordes will descend upon it for more than the day trips easily
Dive Eat Sleep Repeat. That’s the accurate logo of Khao Lak SCUBA Adventures, the company with whom I booked a 4 night, 4 day liveaboard of diving in the Similan Islands off the coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. With 15 dives including one night dive and two sunset dives, the day really did go from sleeping to diving to eating and doing it all again. Exhausting but well
Hammerheads, silver tips, gray reef, black tip, white tip, nurse, and lemon: the sharks of French Polynesia I was lucky enough to see while diving. We missed the tiger sharks of Tahiti and Jen missed the hammerheads on Rangiroa but I think that means we’ll need to come back here. Sharks aside, the underwater world in French Polynesia is incredible. Visibility is almost always unbelievably good, the water consistently