Bonjour from France!

[claire_underwater]

Hi everyone! Happy to join the community. I'm based in Paris, France.
Originally got certified as a teen on holidays in the Maldives, though I stopped diving until a few years ago. I picked up diving again during a solo trip in Thailand where I met an amazing diving community. I've since passed my AOW, deep, dry suit, nitrox certs, and I'm interested in UW photography, thinking about creating a social account for that.
I try to sneak in a few dives anytime I travel (but my partner doesn't dive). I loved diving in western Thailand and some parts in Greece and Spain (caverns / archeological sites).

I haven't been diving in a year due to work (finished my PhD!) BUT I'll be visiting Canada/northeast USA next week and going to D.R. end of May where I'm planning to dive. A dream of mine is to dive in a cenote!

I'm planning some dive trips in France and Spain this summer and maybe a liveaboard in Palau or Galapagos next year

I'm also planning to continue training; I'd like to go technical. Some people have suggested to train in Mexico.

Looking forward to connect! Claire

 

[annasea]

Welcome, Claire!

Looking forward to reading your trip reports from France and Spain, in particular. (Canadian here, en route to France permanently sometime next year at the latest, and hoping to resuming diving once I'm settled.)

 

[Searcaigh]

Bienvenue à Scubaboard

 

[Sascha314]

Welcome.

Congrats to your PhD. Which field?

Just wondering. Finished dry suit, but no diving in France or your nearest neighbour countries?

 

[claire_underwater]

Welcome.

Congrats to your PhD. Which field?

Just wondering. Finished dry suit, but no diving in France or your nearest neighbour countries?

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome!
I did my PhD in computational biology (studying brain immunology using "AI"/maths).

I picked up my dry suit cert because I was keen to dive during winter holidays in Spain. I haven't explored much of Europe UW yet; most of my trips end up being solo add-ons to other travels (no dive buddies here in Paris, and my partner doesn't dive). I found some parisian dive clubs and most need you to convert international certs to the French FFESSM which I find expensive/unnecessary for what I want to do long-term. The European sites I'm interested in are caves, wrecks, flooded mines, which all require specific training.

Having mostly dive in SE Asia, I admit the Med (Greece, Tenerife, eastern Spain) felt a bit underwhelming in terms of biodiversity. I'm planning to give it another shot this summer (Marseille, Turkiye). If you know some good spots, I'm all ears!
My long-term goal is cave diving and wrecks (tek). I've heard there are amazing caves in Lot (France) and flooded mines in Central Europe. I just got back from the Dominican Republic, where I did some incredible cavern dives with a fantastic instructor. Now I'm currently researching where to train in Europe.

Always happy to connect with other divers

 

[MikaelT]

Hi

I recommend that you go to southern Belgium and dive in the many quarries (carriere) they have in this region.
This one is particularly nice and no special certification needed since no overhead environment.

RCAS – Royal Centre d'Activités Sous-Marines

www.royalcas.be

 

[JMarc]

Hi Claire,

Although clubs can be peculiar in their ways, I know of no reason which would prevent you to dive with them without a cross over excepted the wanting to keep things in a familiar setup... and even then the cross over should not be long (Passerelle Advanced Open Water Diver PADI / Niveau 2 FFESSM | FFESSM, Reconnaissance de niveaux | Plongée | ANMP / Guide de la Mer) and an association shouldn't make that much more expensive than needed for the logistic of the dives. Perhaps someone more familiar than me will comment.

Mediterranean live is not as flashy as tropical one, but I wouldn't call it's biodiversity poor. Abundance depend of the sites, and natural reserves like the Medes in Spain and Port-Cros in France are the surest best for that aspect. Around Port-Cros there are also some known wrecks, but you'll need trimix or a CMAS*** for the most famous one.

If you come around Fréjus, you can sent me a message. I can recommend you some shops depending on what you are looking for, and perhaps dive together.

 

[Fat old english bloke]

Being Paris based you’re not far from the Lot, if you’ve an interest in cave training.

Loads of caves, generally decent vis, relatively warm water…..perfect.

You don’t even need to go all the way down to the Lot - there are decent caves accessible from Paris in under 3hrs.

 

[claire_underwater]

Being Paris based you’re not far from the Lot, if you’ve an interest in cave training.

Loads of caves, generally decent vis, relatively warm water…..perfect.

You don’t even need to go all the way down to the Lot - there are decent caves accessible from Paris in under 3hrs.

Actually I was just on the phone with Cave to Be in the Lot to learn about their training! I'm thinking of doing the cavern training there. What are the caves close to Paris?

 

[Sascha314]

Thanks for this answer!

I am also interested in cave/mine and wrecks. Well but I need to save some money right now for all the equipment and courses.

For cave you can go to south france, very famous for it.
In northern croatia or Malta/Gozo you find many wrecks, some also in tec depth. I will go to croatia in october, but as we are a group its not pure wrecks.

For flooded mines actually close to my place of living in Germany you find several, varying complexity. But you need a dry suit, around 8°C water temperature. This is food for me, as I could go there without big expenses.

As for bio diversity I am not an expert, as I mainly dive locally. My partner is not diving as well. Obviously egypt is considered to be the closest for colorfull fish and corals if you start from europe.