What is your favorite dive zone?

[Eric Sedletzky]

I'll put vermilion rockfish up against ANYTHING for brilliant color!

And I want to dive NorCal -- it's where I grew up. It's just that the logistics of getting there and then maybe getting blown out of diving at all by water conditions have daunted me

Or those pesky Garibaldis if you want bright orange and an "in your face and up close and personal" encounter. But not in Norcal, that's socal.

Here we have Vermillions, big lingcod, clouds of blues hanging out over the pinnacles,
chinas, black & yellows, yellow eye, gophers, blacks, olives, kelp greenlings, rock greenlings, kelp fishes of sorts, cabezon, scorpion fish, a few different varieties of colorful perch, ... hey wait a minute, I guess we do have a bunch of different pretty fishes, my bad

And then there's all the crabs (dungeness, yellow and red rock crabs, puget sound king crabs) and giant red abalone, pinto abalone, flat abalone, rock scallops, and all the other growy stuff too numerous to mention in one post.

One of these days Lynne, you and Peter need to join us, I'm serious.

 

[vladimir]

I've gone for 'North Asia' because I think that would mean Thailand/Malaysia/Borneo/Philippines/Indonesia. I think....

How'd all those Southeast Asian countries migrate north? If we use the Wikipedia definition of North Asia, we can expect votes from all those avid divers in Siberia. The Wikipedia definition of Oceania (and these terms all seem pretty negotiable) includes the "Malay Archipelago," (which includes Indonesia), as well as Micronesia, Melanesia (PNG, Fiji, et al), and Polynesia, so I'm going to vote for that.

 

[mobeeno]

I cannot pick a favorite because for me cold water is the Yin and warm water is the Yang of my favorite dive zone.

 

[Skydiver1]

Obvious bias in the poll given majority of users on this forum are from North America. Also key destinations missing such as Red Sea, as other posters have pointed out.

 

[Searcaigh]

Oceania is too vague by definition in Wikipedia for me to vote, never been to Fiji and places east of Philippines.

For me it has to be Malaysia/Indonesia/Philippines

 

[vladimir]

Obvious bias in the poll given majority of users on this forum are from North America.

If you are trying to answer the question, "What is the favorite dive region of Scubaboarders?" that would not bias the poll.

Also key destinations missing such as Red Sea, as other posters have pointed out.

The Red Sea is an arm of the Indian Ocean.

Oceania is too vague by definition in Wikipedia for me to vote, never been to Fiji and places east of Philippines.

For me it has to be Malaysia/Indonesia/Philippines

Sabah and Sarawak (Eastern peninsular Malaysia seems to have fallen through the cracks), all of Indonesia, and all of the Phillippines are included in Oceania (although, as I noted earlier, the definitions are not as definite as one might like). Even if you have never been to the rest of Oceania (it's not really possible to have been everywhere in Oceania, is it?) you can still select it if it includes your favorites.

There is no way to perfectly define all the regions where there is diving. I would have divided them differently too, but people would have quarreled with my choices as well. We Scubaboarders do love to nitpick the polls. I think Undercurrent does a pretty good division: Eastern Pacific, Wider Caribbean and Atlantic, Mediterranean and Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Central and Western Pacific.

 

[Skydiver1]

If you are trying to answer the question, "What is the favorite dive region of Scubaboarders?" that would not bias the poll.

.

Once people are aware that the results are largely based on geographical proximity to North America and convenience for travel, etc. That is all.

 

[k ellis]

Id say Hawaii and pretty much any where in the Caribbean

 

[Midget]

Coral Triangle. Hands down.

 

[Belce]

TSAND...


and our sculpins as well, don't forget them.

Thing about the PNW, just look around anywhere underwater and see life Jacque Coustea indictaed the the PNW as the 2nd best area for diving after the Red Sea, and I think it must have gone to a tie breaker.