scuba diving

Reviews

Nice book with a fair number of pictures. The book can't decide if it is a travel advisory book or a coffee table book, and so misses on being great in either category. To be truly outstanding coffee table book, it would need more full page high quality photos. To be a truly outstanding travel advisory, it need more text and more opportunities for contact of dive operations/activities at each location. In the end, I found it to be a better coffee table book than a travel guide as many locations (that I have been to) had numerous omissions of services and local activities.

my son seemed to like it- i am not a diver. he actually re-gited it to his dad (my ex), hoping his dad will take him to some of these places.

I love this book. It has some wonderful details not normally found in dive books, such as suggested dive operators and little bits of information that you normally wouldn't know about unless you'd traveled to that spot previously. Great photography! Of the places I've been that are in the book, I found the information the book provided to be accurate as well. Nice coffee-table book. Everyone who visits picks it up and has to read a few pages.

I am enjoying reading about places I have been and places I want to dive. Great compilation of dive reviews from around the world.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it cover to cover within 2 days. It's a fast read. Each dive site gets about a 2 and 1/2 page description (some destinations get slightly more) with a dive expert giving a brief vignette on some of the highlights they have encountered at the site. The sites range from novice-friendly to much more complicated (for example, the first site listed is in Antarctica... not exactly luxury warm weather diving!!), but there is enough here to entertain divers of all levels. If you are looking for an in depth analysis of a dive site, this probably isnt the right book for you. The descriptions are just too brief to use the book for that purpose. But if you're just looking for ideas... or if you have a particular large sea creature you are dying to sea (i.e. mola molas, humpbacks, various shark species), the book does a good job of pointing out places where you are more-likely to encounter them. It also hits on dive spots where the macro life is the highlight. In response to one other's reviewers comments about not having a Red Sea or a Cuba destination, that comment is inaccurate. The Red Sea destination mentioned is Sha'ab Rumi, a location off the coast of Sudan. The author recommends a live aboard boat for this trip. For Cuba, the author recommends Jardines de la Reina, though he cautions US citizens who travel there that they do so at their own risk. All in all, a fun book to read on a chilly winter day with a cup of coffee and a tired dog asleep at your feet (at least that's how I did it!).