Scuba Diving – September 2019

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94 / SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 SCUBADIVING.COM

silverside fish. A single silver-

side, 6 inches long, isn’t nec-

essarily exciting—but luckily,

they school by the hundreds,

if not thousands. Light glints

off each fish at different an-

gles, creating a disco-ball

effect that’s beauty in a still

shot and positively beguiling

when caught on video.

READERS PICKS

RESORTS

Amy Slate’s Amoray Dive Resor t,

Key Largo, Florida

Hawks Cay Resor t and Marina,

Duck Key, Florida

Looe Key Reef Resor t, Ramrod

Key, Florida

OPERATORS

Rainbow Reef, Key Largo, Florida

Ocean Divers, Key Largo, Florida

Horizon Divers, Key Largo, Florida

Dive Key West, Key West, Florida

Key Dives, Islamorada, Florida

Quiescence, Key Largo, Florida

Florida Keys Dive Center, Islamorada

REVILLAGIGEDO

ISLANDS, MEXICO

5

“Every day, it’s a given

that you will see big ani-

mals,” says underwater

photographer Joel Penner

of Mexico’s Revillagigedo Is-

lands, known as an outlier

group of islands 250 miles

from shore that acts as a

beacon to passing pelagics.

The season for liveaboard

dive boats to visit Socorro

and the rest of the islands

lasts just from November

through June; during that

window, giant manta rays,

whitetip reef sharks and

hammerheads are seen reg-

ularly—almost daily. Hump-

backs’ migration aligns with

the islands mid-January

through the end of February.

Hammerheads are sighted

April through June, and whale

sharks can be seen in June

and November. In short, there

is no bad time to visit.

Perhaps the biggest draw

of the destination, however,

is that no one dive is spent

encountering just one spe-

cies. “There were multiple

times we would be shooting

mantas when dolphins would

come flying through,” Penner

says. “That was pretty awe-

some.”

READERS PICKS

LIVEABOARDS

Nautilus Explorer, Mexico

Pelagic Fleet, Mexico

Rocio del Mar, Mexico

INDONESIA

6

Photographers can make

the worst dive buddies.

Wakatobi Dive Resort,

a private island south of Su-

lawesi, understands this—

and that shooters trek to

this country, one of the most

biodiverse hotspots on the

planet, to capture images of

every critter possible.

This includes everything

from robust, ornate and

halimeda species of ghost

pipefish to a recently discov-

ered pygmy pipehorse, Kyo-

nemichthys rumengani.

Indonesia won as the top

Readers Choice pick in the

Pacific for photography pre-

cisely because of its over-

whelming variety of species.

To give shot hounds the op-

tion to stay on the shallow

house reef as long as pos-

sible to whittle down their

lists, Wakatobi allows those

with proper training to solo

dive. To further ease the pro-

cess, it offers a one-way boat

taxi out to any starting point

along the edge of the reef,

so camera luggers need only

swim one way in.

Indonesia also offers a se-

lection of liveaboards that

ranked highly with our read-

ers, visiting sites spanning

the entire archipelago.

READERS PICKS

RESORTS

Wakatobi Dive Resor t, Southeast

Sulawesi, Indonesia

Misool Eco Resor t, Raja Ampat,

Indonesia

OPERATORS

Wakatobi Dive Resort Dive Center,

Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia

LIVEABOARDS

The Arenui, Indonesia

Pelagian, Wakatobi, Indonesia

PAL AU

7

There’s the Palau you

know—World War II

wrecks, manta encoun-

ters and shark dives—and

then there’s the Palau you

might not know.

Sam’s Tours, based in Ko-

ror, the commercial center

of Palau, escorts divers to a

choice location 8 miles off-

shore where the bottom lies

3,280 feet below. There, the

firm offers the experience of

blackwater diving. What rises

from the deep is straight

out of the movie The Abyss.

Clear-bodied, segmented pe-

lagic creatures. Animals that

reflect and even emit light.

Deep-water crustaceans and

cephalopods. Says Marc Bau-

man of Sam’s Tours, “The

stuff we are seeing is from

another world.”

READERS PICKS

RESORTS

Palau Pacific Resor t

OPERATORS

Sam’s Tours, Palau

LIVEABOARDS

Palau Aggressor II/Rock Islands

Aggressor

Pacific and

Indian

1st Place Winner