Adventure Diving
Adding a bit of extra stomach flipping excitement, be it creature encounters, or a drifting-through-space race across fields of corals, adventure diving is for those seeking a bit more adrenaline along with their compressed air......
Drift Diving
You wont see nudibranchs on this kind of dive, or any invertibrates for that matter, though you will see sharks of all fin types, eagle rays and other winged sea creatures effortlessly navigating the surging currents in search of food. Drift dives will bring you closer to the pulse of the ocean than any other dive, as this shift in the tides turns the tables on many prey items who become snacks for voracious fish, using the confusion of this twice daily event to secure a meal.
Memorable drift dives are at their best in the narrow channels that allow tidal surges to flow in and out of vast coral atolls; the Maldives, Tahiti and Seychelles have some of the most spectacular drift diving, with grey reef sharks, blue spotted stingrays and other oceanic pelagics encountered.
Muck Diving
Diving in mud may seem like a waste of time, however, for divers in the know, they often won't dive any other way: muck diving is exploring the areas adjacent to mangroves where a thin layer of rotting leaf litter harbour an amazing array of wildlife, from mimic octopus, to juvenile cuttlefish, to colourful nudibranchs....
Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Indonesia are the world capital's of muck diving....
Night Diving
Dive after dark once, and it may be the only way you'll stick your head under the water: the ethereal glow of flashlights; the eerie, liquid moon seen faintly thru the water column; the amazing variety of life hiding, feeding, resting and moving may render daylight dives obsolete. Lightning flashes from nearby storms can transform even a jaw dropping night dive into an extra-planetary experience, with sudden flashes illuminating the reef, your buddy, the dive boat, and your sense of euphoria.
Night diving is at it's best in Hawaii, where manta rays congregate on the Big Island; California, where sealions startle divers out of the gloom; and the major reefs of the world, where coral spawning is a tricky to predict yet astounding experience witnessing how the world's largest organism reproduces.
High Altitude Diving
Diving in alpine lakes can be a cold, barren experience, but for many divers, it's a challenge just waiting to be completed. Special training is required to adjust to the differences in admospheric pessure on the body.
Lake Tahoe in the US state of California, alpine lakes in Switzerland and Austria are popular high altitude dive locations.