There are many reasons that people go scuba diving, but the main reason is to capture the imagination of the underwater world. Scuba diving is unlike anything else, and most of the things that we see about the creatures in the ocean are on the Discover channel. Scuba diving is one of the best things that you are able to do when you’re on a tropical island.
Scuba diving is rapidly growing in popularity so there wouldn’t be a better time to start than right now. Put on your scuba gear and just jump off into the deep end. No matter if you are a diving professional or it would be your first time, here are a few places that you should check out:
1. Great Blue Hole, Belize
Formed during the last ice age, this sinkhole is 300 meters wide, and 124 meters deep. It was formed over years that made ledges that will make you fall straight into the darkness below. In the clear water you’ll find multi-colored stalactites, giant groupers, nurse sharks and Caribbean reef sharks swimming in this natural wonder. It is one of the most astounding dive sites to be found anywhere on earth.
2. Great Barrier Reef, Australia
So large you can see it from space, the Great Barrier Reef stretches 1,430 miles along Australia’s northeastern coast. With sheer size of it, some say that it could almost be called its own country. It covers more than 4,000 separate reefs and islands. The reef is home to more than 1,200 species of fish, numerous shipwrecks, and countless other things to discover. You could spend a lifetime exploring this underwater domain without ever seeing all of its wonders.
3. SS Thistlegorm, Red Sea, Egypt
This is one of the few times that you could say seventy years of rust is actually pretty fascinating. This is the most popular wreck dive in the world, and for good reason. The SS Thistlegorm was a British transport ship, which was attacked and sunk in 1941. The ship was carrying a variety of rifles, trucks, and armored cars. All of this sits at the bottom of the ocean, including the ship itself complete with the large hole where the German bomb broke a whole in the side. Dive groups now swim around and inside the wreck with flashlights to peer at its rusted machine guns. Be careful, you never know what sea creatures are hiding in there as well.