Diving France?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

MNJoe

Contributor
Messages
214
Reaction score
263
Location
Rochester, Minnesota
# of dives
I'm a Fish!
I have a good chance of being sent to Nimes, France in October for work. I will probably take a few personal days while I am there. I know that I will be very close to the Mediterranean Sea. How is the diving in the area? What kind of weather/water conditions should I expect this time of year?

Thanks in advance,

MNJoe
 
You will be indeed not far from the Mediterranean sea, and it would be a shame not to dive there. But just south of Nimes it's not the better place to dive, as it is mostly sandy and with a bad visibility. You should rather go in the south west, closer to the Spanish border, or to the south east, in Marseilles area. Marseilles area is a very nice place to dive, with a lot a spectacular underwater landscape, and nice wrecks. Further in the east, you would have Cavalaire, a place known for its magnificent wrecks, and the best known place in France for Tek diving, with deep wreck and deep walls.
If I were you, I would go to Marseilles or nearby. As I live in Paris, it's 3 hours train from Marseilles, and I go there quite often.

From Nimes, it is something like 120km. You might also consider going in the west part of the bay of Marseilles, which is a little closer from Nimes. As an example, Carry le Rouet is 100 km from Nimes. I know from reputation a dive shop in this small town. However, I never dived there myself. One advantage of this shop is that it also train in Padi system, and you should take care of going in a place used to padi system, as padi is not directly recognized by French diving legislation.
In October, providing there weren't strong winds before, you can expect a quite warm temperature of the sea : it might be around 20 °C or more at surface and the first meters, 16-18 later, colder deeper. I never had, even in winter or deep, colder than 13°, at 70m +. Last year, in early November, it was still at 16° at 60m depth.
 
From Nimes head to Carry le Rouet. We use plongée passion (the link in the above post) I can thoroughly recommend them but their English is limited. They do a wreck dive Sunday mornings and general reef stuff the rest of the week. PADI is totally and widely recognised everywhere in France. It is recognised by the legislative system. However, there are some limitations that do not match PADI standards. You also need a medical certificate of less than a year old.

October can be good or bad - you take your chance. If its bad weather they can't get out to the wrecks but the reef diving is still OK. I'm English - so obsessed with wrecks, but your preferences may be different. There is excellent cave diving in the area. Also some great tech diving, as Sebach says, in the Cavalaire area.

The Marseille area is geared up for tourists and so will have plenty of places with rental gear and spaces for individuals. If you have a medical certificate you will get a dive without any problem at all.

Make time to visit the Ardeche and the Cevennes while you are there, you will not regret it, I promise you.

Chris
 
And of course, between Marseille and Cavalaire : The Hyeres Islands ( îles d'Hyère : Port Cros, Porquerolle) and the "Donator" or " le Grec" : a couple of very famous Mediteranean wrecks.

I also would recommand "Plongée Passion".

When the North Wind blows there, forget diving ( cold watter, rough sea, bas vis...)

After the Ardèche and the Cévenes, when the tourists are all gone, visit the "Luberon"
Few pics :

attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php

Enjoy !
 

Attachments

  • M0010613.JPG
    M0010613.JPG
    112.7 KB · Views: 229
  • M1002035.JPG
    M1002035.JPG
    113.4 KB · Views: 240
  • M1002067.JPG
    M1002067.JPG
    220 KB · Views: 220
  • M1002069.JPG
    M1002069.JPG
    149 KB · Views: 241
  • M1002073.JPG
    M1002073.JPG
    182.9 KB · Views: 232
  • M1002215.JPG
    M1002215.JPG
    200.1 KB · Views: 239
  • M1002041.JPG
    M1002041.JPG
    177 KB · Views: 238
From Nimes head to Carry le Rouet. We use plongée passion (the link in the above post) I can thoroughly recommend them but their English is limited. They do a wreck dive Sunday mornings and general reef stuff the rest of the week. PADI is totally and widely recognised everywhere in France. It is recognised by the legislative system. However, there are some limitations that do not match PADI standards. You also need a medical certificate of less than a year old.
:no It is wrong. As sebach said, PADI is not directly recognized by French diving legislation.
 
I just returned from France and Italy where I did a little diving with my son. We dove in Cinque Terre which is a special protected marine area and just at the French / Italian border from the town of Menton. (I'm not yet permitted to post URLs for some bizarre reason so I'll give you as much data as I can to help you connect with the dive operators and a suggested google search to find the URL.)

We dove twice in Mentone (which is just over the border in France) with an outfit from Ventimiglia that was absolutely fantastic from great staff to great rental gear. It's run by Manuela and Luca. They seem to be able to handle most languages and had newbies (like us) to very serious folks. Their details are below:

Manuela & Luca
Pianeta Blu
cell. +39.335.8155703 - 347.1012896
skype: pianetablu
pianetablu@pianetablu.com
Search: pianetablu.com]
Pianeta Blu Diving Center

The other dive that we did was at Cinque Terre. There is only one authorized dive operator permitted to dive in the Marine Protected area. Do not be confused by others that have Cinque Terre in the name or URL. The only authorized dive operator is Associazione Diving 5 Terre, (google 5terrediving) phone 3900187920011. They too can handle English.
 
:no It is wrong. As sebach said, PADI is not directly recognized by French diving legislation.

Tom, I know you have a childish and stupid axe to grind with FFESSM but your pointless arguments do nothing to help people. Technically you are correct "directly" recognised. PADI certs are recognised by FFESSM outfits through the CMAS agreements with PADI.

This infantile and pathetic attempt to besmirch the French diving system might perhaps have some validity if you were making a point on an instructor's forum or somewhere that anyone cared less about your sad little problem.

However, we are (unless I am very mistaken) giving advice to a US person wishing to dive in France for pleasure as part of a trip. This person will find no issues with his US based certification (whether it be PADI, NAUI, YMCA or GUE) other than that the CMAS equivalence might require a bit more supervision than is the case in the US.

You are very tiresome and irritating in this campaign of yours. Please, for once, try to think that people on this forum are looking for practical advice about doing what they enjoy - diving. If you want to open a debate about the idiosyncrasies of the French system in respect of its recognition of foreign instructors you will find that I am not far from agreeing with you. However, putting this rubbish in front of so many recreational divers is simply misleading and very unhelpful.

It may not break the terms and conditions of membership of the forum, but it breaks the spirit of the forum. Please reconsider, grow up and desist. Thank you.

Chris
 
Tom, I know you have a childish and stupid axe to grind with FFESSM but your pointless arguments do nothing to help people. Technically you are correct "directly" recognised. PADI certs are recognised by FFESSM outfits through the CMAS agreements with PADI.

This infantile and pathetic attempt to besmirch the French diving system might perhaps have some validity if you were making a point on an instructor's forum or somewhere that anyone cared less about your sad little problem.

However, we are (unless I am very mistaken) giving advice to a US person wishing to dive in France for pleasure as part of a trip. This person will find no issues with his US based certification (whether it be PADI, NAUI, YMCA or GUE) other than that the CMAS equivalence might require a bit more supervision than is the case in the US.

You are very tiresome and irritating in this campaign of yours. Please, for once, try to think that people on this forum are looking for practical advice about doing what they enjoy - diving. If you want to open a debate about the idiosyncrasies of the French system in respect of its recognition of foreign instructors you will find that I am not far from agreeing with you. However, putting this rubbish in front of so many recreational divers is simply misleading and very unhelpful.

It may not break the terms and conditions of membership of the forum, but it breaks the spirit of the forum. Please reconsider, grow up and desist. Thank you.

Chris
On the French forum, there are many criticisms on the French system, worse than Scubaboard.

In Villeneuve in France UCPA Aqua 92 – Centre de plongée Paris Hauts-de-Seine – Fosse plongée, baptêmes, plongée encadrée, clubs de plongée - Home, a diving tank of 20 meters (66 feet), if you are PADI divemaster or instructor, you cannot dive autonomous and you must be accompanied by a diver CMAS***, because PADI is not officially recognized. Nobody can dispute to me.

I think that you are very proud and you don't like to hear the criticisms.
 
:shakehead:
Tom, on the french forum you're talking about, even your Swiss fellows are getting tired...

Believe me Crisch, there is nothing to do : this penguin has no brain, just a little grey stone.
The only thing to do is to give your opinion, anyway the penguin will come back to say the last word.

:blessing:Penguin !!! Get out of this body and give us back our Thomas !
 
Holly Cow :rofl3:

I've not been hanging around for a while and I just can't believe it.

Thomas, where in the world aren't you spreading your narrow-minded quarrel ?
Is there any safe place in the universe, far away from your very own crusade ? not sure.

There is no fool like an old penguin.
or maybe you are just a step ahead.

I mean, Cold War being back, misinformation experts will be much sought after and you might make a lot of money, right ?
:dance:
 

Back
Top Bottom