Alert Diver Category: Features

As a diver and photographer, I seek remote locations offering unparalleled underwater experiences. The farther away and the fewer the people, the better. Papua New Guinea is such a place.

This is Fakarava — a remote atoll in French Polynesia that feels more like a gateway to another world than a dive destination. Nestled in the remote Tuamotu Archipelago, this UNESCO biosphere reserve is where discriminating divers come to leave the ordinary behind.

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

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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 …

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.

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