Scuba Diving Tours Guide
Scuba diving tours guide to help you get the most out of your unplanned dives.
Scuba diving can be the sole purpose of a vacation or simply something you spend a day or two between the massage with aromatherapy massage oils and a day spa to your honeymoon doing during a vacation. If you are going on a pure scuba diving vacation you likely will not need any advice planning your trip as you are likely to be an avid diver and to plan your entire trip based on certain sights or species you want to see. If you on the other hand is a recreational diver that dives every now and again you might find yourself on a tropical beach and feel a desire for an unplanned tour into the the magical world beneath the ocean. This guide is written to help you get the most out of your unplanned dives.
Depending on where you are when you decide that you want to scuba dive it might be anything from easy to impossible to find a scuba diving tour operator. Unlike with fishing and some other activities there is far from always possible to find someone that can take you scuba. If we take Nicaragua as an example we can see that there are only a very low number of scuba shops in the entire country and you might therefor not be able to go scuba or need to travel far to do so. If your brought your own gear and have someone with you to dive with than the situation is very different as you can simply charter a boat with a local captain to go out scuba diving. It is however important to remember that it can be very dangerous to dive in unknown waters
especially with untrained people running the boat as they might not spot you if you surface some distance from the boat. We recommend that you always make your first dive in a new area with a local tour company but we do understand if avid divers who bring their gear want to take the risk and go down by themselves since they are usually able to judge and appreciate the risks they are taking.
In areas with no or maybe just one dive shop there are not much you can do except use whichever tour operator you can find or if they or their equipment don’t seem trustworthy, refrain from diving. In places where there are a lot of dive shops you freedom to choose will be a lot bigger and you will personally have a lot more influence in making sure that your diving experience becomes a pleasant one. To make sure of this there are some things you should always remember.
- Choose a dive shop that work with the same organization that you got your diving license. If you are Padi certified use a Padi dive shop.
- Find out whether or not there are dive shops that specialize in certain types of scuba diving such as naturalist dives or wreck dives. If there is a shop that specialize in the type of dive you want to make than they are usually a good choice.
- Find out what nationality the instructors have. In most places where there is a lot of dive shops you should be able to find an instructor that speaks your language or at the very least a language you feel familiar with. Having a guide/instructor that can explain everything in your local language can help make sure that you don’t miss anything and that you get the most out of your dive.
- Do not ignore personal chemistry. If you go in to a shop and don’t like how they treat you or simply do not like the people. Walk away and choose another shop. You will likely be spending a day or at least a few hours on a boat with these people so making sure that you like them or at least can stand them can be an important part towards a good day of diving.
It is often possible to get a good scuba diving experience regardless of whether you planned it as a part of your trip a head of time or not but we none the less recommend you to try to fit in your planning in advance as possible since this will help minimize the risk of a bad scuba diving experience as you get time to research the reputation of different shops etc in a completely different way
I love the awesome post! I read your blog often and I shared
this post on my facebook and my followers lved it. Keep up the great posts.