Scuba Diving Possibilities For 2025
Since we are at the end of our 2024 scuba diving season, I’m going to throw in several possibilities for 2025 as far as fly away trips (we’ll talk about local dives for 2025 in the future since they require much less advance planning). I’m personally off to dive Raja Ampat in Indonesia in late November/early December on a liveaboard boat with a warmup dive in Thailand but I’m already thinking of possible dive destinations for 2025 including those below in case some of you might want to come along.
Belize – South Region
The photo above is of the Great Blue Hole in Belize which is considered a bucket list dive for many. Although not known for marine life on this dive, it’s still a dive to see interesting rock formations. However, an important factor is that the surrounding reefs dives in the same region are reported to be spectacular by some divers I know who went there including some I met while diving Little Cayman. Not to be confused with the more touristy north region of Belize closer to the main city, the south region is the only dive destination in the Caribbean that can rival Little Cayman in terms of overall quality of diving.
This south region of Belize is accessed by special dive trips from the north area but it’s a long day involving 2.5 hours of boat travel each way. So instead of relying on long day trips which might require minimum number of divers to run anyway, the better option will be to stay at dedicated dive resorts located on private islands located in the south near the Blue Hole. These resorts are not cheap but I think it would be totally worth it for a week long dive trip. The other option is to go via the two liveaboards that Aggressor runs in Belize.
Black Water Diving
The term black water diving refers to a type of night diving that takes place out in the open ocean away from any reefs. The idea here is to either hang onto a suspended line or be on a mild drift at night when everything is totally dark and then wait for the weird sea creatures that inhabit the extreme deeps to come up to shallow depths. These are marine life that you would never see on any reef dives. Many of such creatures have their own internal body lighting which make them appear more like alien species from space.
There are only certain areas in the world that offer black water diving and the closest one for us would be West Palm Beach in Florida. This would be fairly convenient to combine with a few days of diving down in Key Largo where there is decent marine life and good wrecks too. We can easily do such a dive trip as a long weekend without having to commit a full week away.
Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef has long been a bucket list dive destination for many. However in recent years reports indicate that much of the reef closer to Australia mainland are bleeched and remaining good diving will be further out far from the mainland. This will require liveaboard boats and many 3 night excursions are run for this purpose. This would be a great way to get introduced to liveaboard diving if a week long one is too much of a step for some divers who have never been on one. Of course getting to Australia will be a big travel task.
Oil Rig Dive Resort In Malaysia
In the same region of the world as Australia is a former oil rig in Malaysia that has been turned into a dive resort called Seaventures. This would be a super unique dive experience in a part of the world that has pristine scuba diving including decent dives right underneath the oil rig. Of course much like with Australia, it’s the long journey to that part of the world that will be a major factor for us. Perhaps it could be combined with Great Barrier Reef or even a trip to Indonesia to dive Komoda (of Komodo dragons fame) which is next to Raja Ampat where I’m diving next.
Return Trip To Vancouver Island
Tai from our dive group and I went to Vancouver Island for a few days of diving there. I was impressed enough with the marine life that I would definitely go there again especially since I didn’t get to see two main marine life targets I was hoping to – Giant Pacific octopus and wolf eel. Much like with a Florida dive trip, Vancouver Island can be easily done over just a few days and since this is cold water diving, we wouldn’t want more than a few days of diving there anyway. BC has always been rated as one of the top ten dive locations each year as voted by international divers who travel. If you are already diving locally with us here in Ontario, you would already be set up with the right drysuit dive gear for BC except you would need to pack on more weight since it’s salt water there.
Sardine Run In South Africa
Perhaps the most ambitious dive on this list would be the sardine run in South Africa. Again it’s another long journey and this would be a seasonal event too. The sardine run is when tons of sardines migrate along South Africa which in turn brings in predators like sharks, dolphins, diving birds and even sailfish, penguins and seals to feast on the sardines. The predators round up the sardines in giant fish bait balls like the one pictured above. You can imagine what a spectacle this would be for us scuba divers.
For me, I would try to combine a sardine run dive trip with a land African safari on the same trip which would make such a long journey worthwhile. Such a trip would require lots of advance planning for sure.
So that’s the list of potential dive trips for me in 2025 and if any of our group divers are interested in any of them, especially the shorter duration ones, let’s keep in contact so we can plan these trips out. Hopefully this list will give you some ideas for future dive trips. If they all seem too ambitious, don’t forget that I’ve personally been to most of the more common dive destinations already and have links to general reports on the diving at these locations at my dive profile webpage.
