Dive: The Ultimate Guide to 60 of the World's Top Dive Locations (Ultimate Sports Guide) - Softcover

Halls, Monty

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9781552979969: Dive: The Ultimate Guide to 60 of the World's Top Dive Locations (Ultimate Sports Guide)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552979962 ISBN 13: 9781552979969

Publisher: Firefly Books, 2004

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The world's top scuba diving destinations.

The world's oceans and seas offer one of the greatest opportunities for adventure and exploration in modern times.

Dive is an authoritative and lavishly illustrated guide with over 300 color photographs and maps. This is a scuba diver's reference to 400 dives in sixty of the world's best locations.

The book provides practical details of specific dive sites as well as a grading system ranging from beginner to expert. Important safety aspects are listed along with key support facilities: hospitals, recompression chambers and dive governing bodies.

The book is organized into specific dives in eleven countries and regions:

Pacific Ocean
North America
Caribbean
Atlantic Ocean
Britain
Mediterranean
Red Sea
Africa
Indian Ocean
Australia
Southeast Asia.

Details include geographical information, marine life, advice for travel and accommodations, local culture, visa requirements, related web sites and contact details.

Dive is the definitive scuba divers' bible: an indispensable world travel guide.

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About the Author:

Monty Halls is a marine biologist and expert diver. A former Royal Marines Officer, Halls leads diving adventure expeditions around the world.

Introduction

Welcome to Dive -- The Ultimate Guide to Sixty of the World's Top Dive Locations.

This book was born out of necessity, based on my experience of organizing trips for diving groups to various locations around the world. It came to me that I was re-inventing the wheel every time I began the laborious business of planning the logistics and administration for these trips. Worryingly, the most difficult information to acquire often concerned the safety aspects of the diving -- details such as where to find the nearest recompression chamber or hospital? Who is the governing body for diving in that area? Which airlines are "diver friendly"?

Therefore, from its inception, the purpose of this guide has been not only to provide diver-friendly descriptions of the selected dive sites -- the standard information of any dive guide -- but also to list the key support facilities -- dive centers, dive organizations, recompression chambers, hospitals and conservation societies -- at each location so no one need ever be in doubt as to where to go for immediate aid or information. And, of course, DIVE includes addresses, telephone numbers, email, and websites for these facilities, as well basic information on first aid in case of emergency.

Also included for each location is essential information about visibility, water temperature (winter and summer), useful travel information about getting there, visa requirements, and currency. There is information on the geography, marine life and the dive area in general as well as detailed reports on selected dive sites. Each of the dive sites reported on is graded according to experience and located on a diver-friendly map for the area. We also record the existence and location of some of the other dive sites in the area. Last, but not least, you will find information on other activities and not-to-be-missed places of interest for rest-days and for non-divers.

This book has been a labor of love. Not just for me, but for everyone else involved especially the team at Ultimate Sports and the hundreds of divers and specialists throughout the world who also thought the time was right for a one-stop reference guide for today's globe-trotting diver. They have helped me to list some of the greatest dive spots on Earth, most of them run by operators who care passionately for their own piece of the blue planet, often policing their reefs and dives with missionary zeal.

There are also a good sprinkling of obscure sites known to and loved by locals but often hidden in the small print of some other dive guides -- and for these I thank the many divers who have shared their secrets with us. In addition, some of the most talented underwater photographers I have had the pleasure of working with in more than two decades of diving have helped bring the book to life with their spectacular images. The result is a unique glimpse of what each site can offer, an irresistible draw for the diving aficionado.

By no means is this guide the final word on the subject of world diving. It is very much a "live" work, waiting for feedback, updates, and the steady flow of information required to keep pace with the discovery of new sites and the ever-changing face of diving. Listing any selection of top dive locations is always a touchy business, so please feel free to translate your righteous indignation into advice and feedback -- your contribution is invaluable and will help to extend and improve future editions of this guide in years to come.

We are the first generation to have explored beneath the surface of the sea on a regular basis. Divers have a unique insight into the steady decline of key marine species and habitats in the delicate coastal fringes they frequent in ever greater numbers. The dive operators in this book have all shown a responsible approach to their dive sites and the spectacular species therein -- it is incumbent on us all to do the same.

I hope this book gives you the chance to make your own explorations a little easier and more successful. Safe diving!

Monty Halls

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