New Member, based in San Diego

[nglundgren]

New Member here, based in San Diego. Retired and resuming the sport. Recently spent 5 days diving in Roatan, my FIRST warm water diving experience. Wonderful time and looking forward to more.
Planning a trip with a buddy to Raja Ampat in September; short notice I know. Any advice on live aboards and shore accommodations are appreciated.

 

[donhealy]

Welcome back to the world of bubbles! I am in Carlsbad if you need anything.

 

[Tyler duran]

San Diego Divers loves to screw around with burst discs on tanks. They’ll swap “proper” ones onto your tank without discussion.

Parking on Vallecito street in front of La Jolla shores is legal n free before 8am.

La Jolla Cove is way more challenging entry, if it’s not flat calm probably just hit LJ shores.

Casino point at Catalina is worth the money spent.

 

[scubadada]

New Member here, based in San Diego. Retired and resuming the sport. Recently spent 5 days diving in Roatan, my FIRST warm water diving experience. Wonderful time and looking forward to more.
Planning a trip with a buddy to Raja Ampat in September; short notice I know. Any advice on live aboards and shore accommodations are appreciated.

Welcome to SB. San Diego is a great place to dive. I did a lot of shore diving 1972-76 while I was at UCSD. Have had many nice visits since diving Kelp, Wreck Alley, Hogan, and Coronados. I'm very fond of Marissa. I haven't dived Waterhorse since they changed hands. Great place, cold water. If I lived there now it would be a drysuit, with a pee valve.

 

[drrich2]

Planning a trip with a buddy to Raja Ampat in September; short notice I know. Any advice on live aboards and shore accommodations are appreciated.

Welcome to ScubaBoard. Where did you dive in Roatan? And what operation?

On the issue of Raja Ampat, I've never been but hope to be blessed to go, so I've been checking into it and asking some questions. Some threads that might help:

Your Opinions on Comparing First Timer Coral Triangle Dive Destinations?

Scroll down to where dates for different destinations are discussed. September isn't in the prime window for RA diving, but I don't know how much that matters.

Dig through the forum Indonesia sub-forum and you'll find threads on liveaboards and land-based options.

Also see Indonesian Legalities and Indonesian Bathroom Hygiene Practices?

Richard.

 

[nglundgren]

Welcome to ScubaBoard. Where did you dive in Roatan? And what operation?

On the issue of Raja Ampat, I've never been but hope to be blessed to go, so I've been checking into it and asking some questions. Some threads that might help:

Your Opinions on Comparing First Timer Coral Triangle Dive Destinations?

Scroll down to where dates for different destinations are discussed. September isn't in the prime window for RA diving, but I don't know how much that matters.

Dig through the forum Indonesia sub-forum and you'll find threads on liveaboards and land-based options.

Also see Indonesian Legalities and Indonesian Bathroom Hygiene Practices?

Richard.

We stayed and dove with Anthony's Key Resort, it was all-inclusive including three dives a day plus a couple night dives. It was all reef diving, nothing too deep, at most 100 ft along some canyons. Wreck dives were cool and the shark dive was great. Really liked the resort and the price was right, a two for one deal that was purchased two years ago, but the pandemic got in the way.
Thanks for the links on Raja Ampat

Nels

 

[KrisR]

Hi,

I’m never done a liveaboard in Raja Ampat however I have stayed in the water bungalows with Kri Exo resort. They had some amazing hawk eye dive guides who found everything I was looking to see. I had priced the trip and this came out as the best value for me at the time. Foods great, we opted to stay in the open villas which got a good sea breeze but there was no aircon. I know that could be a deal breaker for some however the sister property has aircon bungalows.
I had such a good experience so can’t help but reccomend them.
Kris

 

[ojo]

New Member here, based in San Diego. Retired and resuming the sport. Recently spent 5 days diving in Roatan, my FIRST warm water diving experience. Wonderful time and looking forward to more.
Planning a trip with a buddy to Raja Ampat in September; short notice I know. Any advice on live aboards and shore accommodations are appreciated.

Hi nglundgren, wondering whom you dove with/where you stayed in Raja, and how it was. I'm also in SD, btw.