South Australia’s Great White Shark Adventure

Great white sharks are capricious fish. They are iconic, impressive, photogenic, and awe-inspiring but also frustrating. That frustration is not all about the animal — part of it is how few places in the world you can go to see them.

A great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) swims near the surface cage

Thailand’s Surin Islands

The Kingdom of Thailand, a sprawling Southeast Asian country slightly larger than California, shares land borders with four countries and neighbors a fifth by sea.

A pair of cleaner wrasses remove parasites from a longfin batfish

Cozumel

Cozumel, a tiny gem of an island in the Caribbean Sea, is nestled across from mainland Mexico in the state of Quintana Roo near the eastern tip of the Yucatán […]

Gladys glides over the tops of colorful pinnacles at Colombia Deep.

Central California Photo Gallery

View Andy and Allison Salmon’s bonus photo gallery that accompanies their feature on diving Central California.

Cocos Island

“Pura vida!” our dive guide, Sergio, exclaimed with a relaxed smile. Eight dive buddies, Sergio, and I just had an incredible experience: A 35-foot-long whale shark swam a few feet over our heads at one of the better-known dive sites at Cocos Island, Costa Rica. It silently came and went, seemingly carefree, like a giant spotted apparition sliding out of sight into the deep blue.

Belize

Our explorations of Belize’s equally biodiverse jungles and reef systems some 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) south repeatedly reminded me of that endless summer afternoon in Alaska.

The Great Blue Hole on the northern end of Lighthouse Reef Atoll

A Quest for Life

Seemingly crafted for photographers, nudibranchs are slow-moving and vibrant and have adapted to curious shapes and sizes.

The Miamira tenue sea slug often has a partner shrimp riding along its back and sides.

Getting Centered

With the COVID-19 pandemic curbing international travel, divers can still choose to dive locally. Andy and Allison Sallmon take us along on their road trip to Central California dive sites, where we can discover macro subjects in Morro Bay and bountiful marine life at the well-protected sites at Carmel and Monterey Bay.

California’s Big Sur coastline

Fakfak

Just before sunrise I make a cup of strong Indonesian tea and feel the familiar rush of anticipation that always builds when I dive where no one else has. From the liveaboard’s top deck I squint at a string of islands— just green dots from here — that stretch offshore from the Fakfak Regency …

Misool Foundation

The spectacular ecosystem of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat offers ample opportunities for fish portraits and macro shots with a 100mm lens, but the broad expanses of pristine hard corals punctuated with colorful soft corals and sea fans made it difficult for me to forego using my wide-angle lens during a recent liveaboard trip.

A drone’s view of Batbitim Island and the surrounding waters of Misool