My favorite dive was in Malaysia Borneo. I had logged about 26 dives and happened to be traveling in Borneo where I heard about Sipadan.
At the height of that day we were 80 ft down, sheer coral covered walls, 130ft vis, 1,000ft deep blue saphire water, hundreds of schooling barracuda spiraling upwards, black tip, white tip and gray reef sharks, turtles, and countless colorful reef fish all at the same time. It was truly unbelievable! That’s the day I fell in love with scuba!
Of course that day has a rival. Dropping down 100ft onto huge ships in Coron Bay Philippines last summer, some up to 450ft long. Huge gaping bomb holes from WWII battle, more passages than you can imaging!
Here's a clip from my travel journal:
Giant stride into still dark water. Drop like a feather through 30ft vis water following the rope. Then out of the dark blue this huge form materializes, my heart rate rises - (relax deep breaths) - its such an amazing sight- for a minute my air consumption rises!
Keep dropping deeper and deeper, down the hull - 2 minutes to reach 100ft then start exploring! Penetrations passages everywhere. You can see the bomb holes, and the destruction from fire before it sunk where huge steel platforms crushed down on the deck. Peering into the dark silt covered surrealistic hallways - and into the gaping bomb holes revealing destruction on many floors - I wonder how many Philippines lost their life in this short battle?
Even though I am not certified for penetration, we still swim through tons and tons of swim-through cracks and holes. Peeking into many holes and dark hallways - its absolutely amazing & the passages are so inviting! I've never seen anything like this underwater.
Dove two more wrecks today. Hundreds and hundreds of jack fish schooling around us on the the deck of the first one. And a thousands of small silver fish that looked like tiny barracuda schooling the other way. They encircled the giant coral encrusted black smoke stack towering stories above the coral covered deck. This site much be a tech divers dream.
My favorite local dive was day I joined Clinton for my first and only commercial local boat trip. We dropped down on the outter pinnacles & must have had 70ft vis. I saw my first hydrocoral (beautiful colors), the kelp was stunning!
[url=http://www.baue.org/images/galleries/v/local/carmel_9-20/]Carmel Bay from the Cypress Sea[/URL]
I wish everyone SCUBA days like these!!