Diving with a Liveaboard Maldives | A Diving Holiday to Remember

Liveaboard Maldives have become one of the most popular liveaboard diving in the scuba diving community because of wealth of remarkable white sandy beaches, coral reefs, crystal clear waters, many great diving sites and affluent marine life. Most hotels and resorts in Maldives have facilities for scuba diving as it becomes the main activity for tourists visiting the country. Liveaboards in Maldives have increased by a large number recently. So many experience scuba divers prefer to book holiday with a Maldives liveaboard diving boat to enjoy a fully scuba related holiday. 

Liveaboard Maldives operators take the divers to many beautiful dive sites around the country. Maldives is not a big country anyway and with a liveaboard diving boat it becomes just fantastic. On a Maldives liveaboard diving boat you can expect to have more than 4 dives a day in the beautiful atolls and reefs. There are many dive sites around the capital Male where most of the liveaboard Maldives start their journey. Around Male there are many divers exploring the dive sites and the reefs seem a bit tired of human too. So for best diving you may wait till the liveaboard Maldives takes you to other atolls where there are fewer divers and most of the corals are untouched. 

The marine life in Maldivian water is just spectacular with many pelagic life and colorful coral gardens. In a typical dive you can easily encounter species like whale sharks, manta rays, eagle rays, reef sharks, hammerhead sharks and moray eels and also many smaller fish. Many liveaboard Maldives will give you a briefing about the marine life before jumping into the water. There are certain places where you can encounter many Manta rays in a single dive and some sites are famous for other species. So speak to your Maldives liveaboard diving operator if you want to experience anything specific. 
 
Regardless which dive site you choose, a Maldives liveaboard diving holiday will definitely be one of the most memorable thing in life. After all, the country has 99% water and just 1% land. So Maldives is definitely for underwater activities.   

Thailand Liveaboard Diving Holiday and Similan Liveaboard

Planning a Thailand liveaboard diving holiday? Thailand is a real paradise on earth for many scuba divers with hundreds of spectacular reef sites and amazing marine life. There are many Thailand liveaboard diving destinations that will attract a diver’s attention. Some of them are Phuket, Khura buri, Koh Phi Phi Ko Lanta and similan islands. 

Similan liveaboard boats are the most popular among the divers who visit Thailand for a diving holiday. Similan islands are a group of 9 islands located 65 km off the north coast of Phuket. These islands are the top liveaboard Thailand destinations with the most amazing natural beauty. The main attraction for people using a similan liveaboard is the whale sharks. Divers encounter this giant sea creature in most of the dives. If you’re using a liveaboard Thailand to visit the other destinations, you can still expect to spot these sharks. The accommodation is not that great in Smilan islands. So your best bet is to use a Similan liveaboard that will let you dive all the beautiful sites.   

When booking a liveaboard Thailand, you may also consider Ko Lanta. The island is famous for its amazing dive sites and beautiful white sandy beaches. Most of the Thailand liveaboard boats will take you around the Koh Lanta National Park and archipelago that consists of more than 50 island in the water of Andaman sea. 

You can also book your liveaboard Thailand to visit Koh Phi Phi island which was voted as a top destination in TipAdvisor in 2011. Koh Phi Phi is also a national park and there are six islands in total that form the park area. Using a liveaboard Thailand you can dive all the beautiful sites around the national park. 

The best thing about liveaboard diving in Thailand is you can dive almost the whole year in different islands. Some islands are restricted for diving during wet season which you should check before booking a Thailand or Similan liveaboard diving holiday.

Steps to start scuba diving

Did you ever think of floating with no weight like the astronauts do, looking at unusual creatures and investigating old shipwrecks that are 100 years old? Well, there is a great recreational activity to make these dream adventures come true, called scuba diving. Scuba diving is very easy sports for most of the people as long you have a short training and attention to detail. You may want to learn scuba diving to watch amazing fish life, ocean conservation or just to meet some of the adventurous minded people. Here are some easy steps to the world of scuba diving.

 Check your physical fitness: The scuba diving community faces modern advances in dive equipment, medicine, and training which allow people of almost all ages except the children learn scuba diving. You must have a minimum level of fitness which is a common thing in any sports. However, there are some medical conditions that don’t go well with scuba diving. So make sure you read dive medical questionnaire before enrolling to a certification course.

Take a course: Unlike any other sports scuba diving has some risks that can be managed by taking a short training course. Actually forgetting small things can be very risky in scuba diving as you will be surfing under the ocean with no such protections like the filmmakers. There are different types of training available for anyone want to learn diving. The most basic training is try dive which gives you training in a pool. So you can get some hold of being underwater without getting scared. An open water course is what you need where you get training in reef. Don’t worry, most of the time training is provided in easy places that has no current.
Buy your gears: Scuba diving is heavily dependent on diving equipments as you are going to an environment where we humans can’t breathe. Most of the dive centers rent the necessary equipment, but if you really like diving you may want to have some of your own stuffs. There are few personal things you must have such as wetsuits, fins, and masks.

There are other things you must keep in mind such as learning dive theories and of course practice as much you can. Once you go underwater things may not work as you thought before. So speak to other divers as much you can. Learn how they tackle in the current in the ocean. Don’t hesitate to ask the dive master all the questions come in your mind.

Using a dive log book in your scuba diving

Scuba divers use dive log book to keep record of the dives they have done and also helps with many other purposes including safety. When start doing scuba dive, dive log book helps you to keep track of air consumption, weighting, and use of equipment. By using a dive log you can see how you improve and match with different diving conditions underwater. Specially for the new divers, most of the dive centers will ask to see previous records of scuba diving. So using a dive log book you can keep all the records and show it to them. 

A dive log book is more of a scuba diving journal for you.  Many experience scuba divers may not use a dive log anymore as they have gained enough skills and understanding about their diving. But still a large number of scuba divers use dive log that helps them remember great dives and best diving spots. In a two weeks scuba diving holiday you may spend over a day underwater. So it’s a great thing to be able to open a dive log book and check what you have done and how much you have improved as a scuba diver. Even for experienced divers, sometimes it’s ideal to use a dive log as they can monitor all the new tools they are using and how effective the tools are when diving in the sea. The safety part of the dive log is also something that even an experienced diver can’t avoid. Here are few things that a dive log contains:

Dive log header: This section keeps the basic information like date, time and location of the dive.

Dive log profile: This is the most important part for safety side. The records it keeps are bottom time, the maximum depth you reached and the air you entered and left with. Many recreational divers will have records like average depth, the time you entered, and your nitrogen diffusion levels before and after a dive. 

Some of the other things a log book may have are equipments used, dive site conditions, comments, photos, marine life encounters, site map and log validation. It’s always a good idea to use dive logs for all sorts of reasons. There are many websites on the web for doing that. So make it a better scuba diving experience using a dive log book.