Mid. 40's, married, got a pre-toddler daughter, strictly recreational diver, living in Kentucky, enjoy tropical diving, mainly reefs but some wrecks (as artificial reefs). So some famous foreign locations probably aren't in the cards. Plus, I don't like plane rides over 4 hours. Mainly a Florida & Caribbean diver, having hit Key Largo, Jupiter, Bonaire x 8 & I've done a smattering of cruise ship stops diving St. Thomas, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Costa Maya, Puerto Rico, St. Croix & St. Lucia.
So, my conservative bucket list would now be:
1.) Aquacat Live-aboard. Although reputedly not the best diving available, the Bahamas seem to be kind of iconic as a scuba destination, rather like Cozumel and Bonaire with more name recognition than either, but there's the sharks thing. I haven't yet done a live-aboard. And the Aquacat is a very reputable operation. So, file under '3 birds with one stone' if I spend a week on that someday.
2.) North Carolina. Diving with large numbers of sand tiger sharks. It's on my list! Despite my trepidation about trying to re-board in the Atlantic if the seas get bad while we're down.
3.) Cozumel - did 2 dives there on a cruise ship stop, but would like to take a week, hit Hotel Cozumel maybe, and dive with Living Underwater (or maybe Aldora Villas and dive with Aldora) and 'do it for real.' Iconic place, warm, great viz., probably more big stuff than Bonaire, not too bad to get to, overall trip cost pretty budget as scuba vacations go.
4.) Little Cayman - either LCBR or the Cayman Aggressor live-aboard. I keep reading that Little Cayman is the best diving in the Caribbean, and Bloody Bay Wall is 'the stuff,' so to speak. Since this is the part of the world I dive, seems it would be worthwhile to go check out what is allegedly the best of it.
5.) Belize via Live-aboard - another iconic scuba destination, said best done by live-aboard. Did visit on cruise stop one day and did the New Liver and Lamanai tour; saw 3 Mayan ruins & climbed atop 2 of them, and it's a good memory.
6.) The Flower Gardens via the MV Fling. Well-regarded on the forums, sounds a little advanced for me to hit alone right now. My main problems are trips tend to be short, but my air fare is the same whether I go 3 days or a week. I'd probably need to rent a car to get down there. Flying round trip, renting a car, going all that way and diving 2 or 3 days? And they don't put a guide in the water. I think I'd like it at a calm time of year, but roughly the same money can get me a 1 week trip somewhere else and more dives in.
Okay, finally, I've got one potential bucket list trip that's more of a classic 'go big' thing, and I'm ever not too cheap to do it.
7.) Cage diving with great white sharks off Guadalupe, Mexico.
And one 'exotic' trip, if I am ever willing to take off the time and grow butt roots in plane seats getting there.
8.) The Philippines. I keep reading how awesome the diving is in parts of the Pacific, particularly Indonesia, and the Philippines are about as far as this conservative homebody is likely to get. And even that is a stretch.
Richard.