Expat Diver in Turkey Checking in

[Byzantine84]

Scuba Board and fellow divers,

I wanted to introduce myself quickly: Expat living in Istanbul, diving since 2008. PADI divemaster.

Unfortunately, my diving does not amount to more than about 3 weeks a year due to work but I hope to do more local diving in an around the Dardanelles now that I have picked up a drysuit. Most of my diving is done around Kas in southern Turkey though I have dived elsewhere:

Mexico
Seychelles
Maldives
Greece

Also, I will be in northern Ontario this summer near lake superior. Having never dived fresh water or in the great lakes, any advice and info is much appreciated.

Byzantine84

 

[selimecesur]

There are people who dive near Princess Islands. However, the two reasons people don't prefer diving in the sea of Marmara are strong currents at the Bosphorus and the visibility is not good.

I will recommend going Saros Bay with Atlantis Scuba Store Istanbul Diving School Diving Center for one weekend.The instructor is marine biologist who is trained, experienced and responsible leader (with fluent english of course) and you can have answers even to your technical questions. Saros Bay is at the Aegean sea 3 hours away from Istanbul. They will pick you from your Hotel in Istanbul on friday night or saturday morning to the diving point and back to your Hotel on Sunday night. They usually dive from the coast and this coast is suitable for both experienced and unexperienced.

 

[yesildag]

I went with Atlantis Scuba recently (mentioned above) and had a very good experience, and would recommend highly. The instructor Adam is very knowledgeable and cares deeply about sustainable diving and the environment. He also is a food buff, and a wild mushroom expert, so you will complement your dive trip with some farm stall visits.

Some tips, however: Tip 1) be clear with Adam about when and where you will dive, and insist that you only dive in interesting places. We did our first two dives in pretty barren environment, I believe that was chosen because of tip 2) Tip 2) Adam at the same time as taking us out (experienced open water divers), also tried to squeeze in a "Discovery Scuba" course with a couple of innocents who could not even swim. Seriously. These guys had never been swimming, and wanted to learn how to dive. This took a huge amount of time, and we eventually had to insist to have our second dive before the light completely disappeared.

Our experiences with diving are Red Sea, Andaman Islands, Sri Lanka, around Phuket. Saros Bay doesn't match up, of course, but for a weekend experience you will have a great time.