St. Thomas, Nevada, a ghost town from the 1930s, has risen from its watery grave. St. Thomas was a Mormon settlement first established in 1865. Its location was where the Muddy River and Virgin River flowed into the Colorado River. A small farming community thrived in what is the middle of a desert due to the fertile soils deposited by the river and the flow of fresh water they provided. The town continued to grow as a railroad spur connected the town to cities in California and Utah. Gold miners in the surrounding mountains used it as a supply point. Life was great in the town until 1928. That was the year that the new Boulder Dam was approved. Residence were told they would have to leave but many did not really believe the government, the dam site was over 100 miles away and they were over 400 feet higher in elevation. It took ten years, but eventually the water behind the dam submerged the town.
Hello ! I'm going to Sri Lanka from January 24 to February 7.
It is my dream to swim with whale sharks. Do you have any information concerning the place where I could see them ? I know the season starts in February but I really really want to have the chance to be swimming with these sharks.
Thank you a lot !
Hi Kelly, Sri Lanka is not a good place to see whale sharks. They are very rare and sightings are very intermittent. Locations like Donsol in the Phillipines and certain areas in the Maldives are much better. Sorry to disappoint but of course there is still much to see in Sri Lanka if you are diving. Also the season started back in November and will run until April. Cheers, Naren
For future trips, consider visiting Utila in the Bay Islands of Honduras. The island is home to the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Center and whale sharks have been sighted in local waters year round.
RAID officially announced themselves as a full service training agency at UK Dive 2014 in October. During an interview at that show, RAID International’s Director of Diver Training Paul Toomer was quoted on the way they feel about the role of accreditation. He said: “At the moment, the training agencies consider themselves to be the focal point of the diving industry. I never believed, ever, they are. I believe that the focal point of the industry is the dive. That is why we go through the hurdle that we call certification.” Paul Toomer had over a decade of teaching rebreather and technical courses,before he was appointed International Director of Technical Training for SSI.
RAID started the first day at DEMA announcing a free diving program. Mike Wells the Freediving guru who wrote the world’s first ever globally accepted freediving program has teamed up with RAID as their International Director of Freediving. Wells says: “The program is entirely digital - the first such freediving program in the world. Secondly it is a whole new way to teach freediving; doing away with nonessential skills, the myths of old school freediving and stripping away the unnecessary romantisizing of freediving. We therefore have created a new program that fits a modern digital age and the modern tech savvy adventurer. This in turn creates a better learning experience and ultimately attracts far more people and produces far better freedivers”. The program was launched with World Series Freediving (WSF) and is also the first with a continuing education feature.
Playa del Carmen is one of the best places to dive with Bull Sharks. Warm water, very good visibility, no cage and just about 15min from the beach. The shark season is between November and February. I've seen 10 sharks at the same time. If the weather is not good you can dive in the "cenotes" (caves) which is an amazing experience too.
I like to dive with Deep Mexico. They don't feed the sharks.
Fantastic dive sites, too much wildlife to list here. Beautiful coral gardens, fantastic drop offs, there really is something for all levels of experience.
I dive with Panorama Divers, who are professional, knowledgeable, friendly and fun! They have a great working knowledge of the sites, and will ensure you get the trip of a lifetime. High standard of equipment, well maintained. The boat is spacious and comfortable, with great food.
What are you waiting for!
Hmm, probably late May or October. If you go over winter it can get very cold on the boat, especially changing out of your wetsuit!
Why don't you contact Panorama Divers, and they can recommend the best time to visit depending on what you would like to see?
The Christmas holidays this year have been kind to our local divers with consistently good conditions throughout.Cook island has had the usual summer influx of leopard sharks and also guitar sharks in good numbers.blue spotted rays were in abundance along with a few large bull rays and we even got a brief glimpse of a manta just before Christmas.this along with all the usual critters has made for some great diving and it looks like it's set to continue into the new year!
This sounds like great diving! I have yet to see a guitar shark - it is on my bucket list. Are they pretty common there? Are they seasonal?
Arrieta is a little village on the north shore of Lanzarote. No large hotels or loud disco music but small appartments and local food in small restaurants. Hiring a car is rather cheap and really a good idea.
The diving takes place from the shore and really good soles on the boots or rockboots are necessary on the slippery wet rocks.
I flooded my camera on the first dive :-( but I rember seeing lots of octopi, rays, pufferfish, chromis, parrotfish and nudibranchs on my dives that were all very pleasant though getting in and out of the water was sometimes challenging!
And always remember: it is the Atlantic you are diving so conditions can be rough. The water is nice and warm all year round because of the Golf Stream.
I will be back
Ach! Flooded cameras.. some how I have managed to do that twice. Given up and gone to go-pro for the time being :)
St Helena does not appear on the draw down list of sites so you need to find it - slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic and six days by ship from CT. Bit the voyage, which will be shorter once an airport is completed in 2016, is worth it all. Yesterday six of us snorkeled with a whaleshark; today we dived to 33m to the Darkdale, a WW2 ship sunk by a u-boat and were accompanied by a devil ray. Dives, including equipment and air, cost £20 with the excellent subtropic adventures.
Lovely report Andy! I actually did not have this on our Guide Development map.. so thank you for raising the location's profile with us. We will do some work on the location over the next month or two and we can relocate your report to the location once we create it!
This was my first dive outside my home town (UAE, Dubai) and after many research we decided on Weligama based on the report that we might see big fishes. The weather was perfect and waves not too bumpy, but the dive was a bit disappointing. We were told that since the monsoon ended late, the big fish season would start end of December/start of Jan. We have not seen any Mantas, Whale sharks, reef sharks but we did see a lot of different star fishes, small fishes, a beautiful scorpion fish and few barracudas. Also few eels.
Over all, it was very nice but I was disappointed to miss the big fishes.
As for snorkelling, it was too dusty and there was almost no coral reef near the beach due to the fishing ships, though we saw few nice marine life, it was not as much as expected.
The Dive centre staff however were extremely helpful and pretty fun. I would lie if I said I didn't enjoy the dive and the four day and I would certainly be back but next time will make sure its the right season.
Hi Gabriel. This is what the dive centre told us. Starting from End of Dec is the best time for seeing big fishes.
Sharief, we will update the Weligama Animal Calendar to make it align a little more with your useful feedback.
Had an awesome dive with two clients and we found an octopus trying to raid the nest of a damsel fish. She was darting at the octopus and he was trying to escape her wrath...He finally gave up on trying to eat her eggs
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