Italian Dive Advice, Please

[divedreaming]

Great information, thank you! In looking into this a little deeper, I think we have narrowed it down. We will likely look to go somewhere between Portofino/Santa Margherita Ligure on the north end, and Elba/Piombino on the south end. So, any recommendations for locations and dive operations from here would be appreciated. Thank you again!

Hi Scubamon

Diving in the Protected Marine Park of Portofino is fantastic - best diving in the Med - perfect for beginners and advanced divers because there are plenty of multi-level dives. corals are spectacular and the marine life is abundant because the park has been protected since '98 so..no fishing! DWS Diving mentioned by Piccollo would be perfect for you because it is UK/Italian owned so all English speaking - not that normal for Italy. I am one of the partners - only stating that to be honest! but we are with a nice covered boat. smaller operation than most of our competitors so you get more attention and its less busy. anyway do contact us - info@dwsdiving.com and if we can help you we will. You dont say exactly where you are in Tuscany but the train journey direct from Pisa to Santa Margherita is 90 minutes. If you let us know where exactly you are staying we can try and help suggest your trip and/or let you know if its viable in a day roundtrip. Anyway wish you a lovely summer holiday!

 

[divedreaming]

Great information, thank you! In looking into this a little deeper, I think we have narrowed it down. We will likely look to go somewhere between Portofino/Santa Margherita Ligure on the north end, and Elba/Piombino on the south end. So, any recommendations for locations and dive operations from here would be appreciated. Thank you again!

Hi Scubamon

Diving in the Protected Marine Park of Portofino is fantastic - best diving in the Med - perfect for beginners and advanced divers because there are plenty of multi-level dives. corals are spectacular and the marine life is abundant because the park has been protected since '98 so..no fishing! Also as Piccollo mentioned we have the most famous dive in the Med in the park - the Christ of the Abyss - a giant submerged statue in honour of all those who devote their lies to the ocean - also a perfect dive for all. DWS Diving mentioned by Piccollo would be perfect for you because it is UK/Italian owned so all English speaking - not that normal for Italy. I am one of the partners - only stating that to be honest! but we are with a nice covered boat. smaller operation than most of our competitors so you get more attention and its less busy. anyway do contact us - info@dwsdiving.com and if we can help you we will. You dont say exactly where you are in Tuscany but the train journey direct from Pisa to Santa Margherita is 90 minutes. If you let us know where exactly you are staying we can try and help suggest your trip and/or let you know if its viable in a day roundtrip. Anyway wish you a lovely summer holiday!

 

[scubamon]

Thank you, divedreaming. I just sent you a PM.

 

[Piccola]

Hey scubamon, were you able to hook up for a dive with DWS?

 

[DinaDives]

We just returned from Italy in June and took the ferry over to Elba and stayed 2 days. We did a one tank dive with "Diving in Elba" and had a great experience. We are newbies - my husband and me and our 14 year old daughter. We went via boat to Scoglietto. Our guide took us no deeper than 15 meters. We saw barracuda, grouper and rays. The water was beautiful and warm. One thing we really liked that we hadn't seen before (in SoCal) is that the guide had hand signals for the different fish one typically sees. So she would make the hand signals when we saw some fish and we would understand what we were seeing. It was a great adventure!

 

[Boa Gialla]

We just returned from Italy in June and took the ferry over to Elba and stayed 2 days. We did a one tank dive with "Diving in Elba" and had a great experience. We are newbies - my husband and me and our 14 year old daughter. We went via boat to Scoglietto. Our guide took us no deeper than 15 meters. We saw barracuda, grouper and rays. The water was beautiful and warm. One thing we really liked that we hadn't seen before (in SoCal) is that the guide had hand signals for the different fish one typically sees. So she would make the hand signals when we saw some fish and we would understand what we were seeing. It was a great adventure!

Elba is great !!



A.

 

[scubamon]

Ciao, Scubaboard!

WE are returned from beautiful Italy and were able to get our day of diving into the trip. We drove from our Tuscan villa near Greve in Chianti to Santa Margherita Ligure and met the team at DWS Diving by about 9 AM, about a 3 hour drive. We dove three tanks, three sites in the Portofino Marine Park and all were really fun. Air temp was in the low 80s, water was mid-to-upper 70's, visibility was 50 feet or so. I rented a wetsuit that was 6.5 mm and it was more suit than I needed and a new experience for me to have a big suit like that. Highlights of the diving:
A school of maybe 75 barracuda, not so great picture attached.

Beautiful brightly colored starfish in large numbers.

Tons of these little jellies.

And of course the Christ of the Abyss.

It was along day, lots of driving and tons to feed the senses. The whole area near Portofino, Cinque Terre, is spectacular and I could have easily spent my whole trip there. But the one day was well worth the driving and we slept well back in Tuscany that night. Thank you to Luca and his staff at DWS for taking great care of us!

---Wes

 

[divedreaming]

hi wes

many thanks for the post and so glad that you had a good day (albeit tiring!) hope you will find your way back to us another time soon! barracuda numbers this year were amazing - so pleased you got to see them
cathyxx

 

[Piccola]

I have wonered how you made out scubamon. I will be heading back to see Luca in a few months as well. Happy diving..

 

[kaaralex]

edited ..