Diving

Diving in the fastest saltwater current in the World.

From the zodiac I look into the current and the whirls. I am ready to go into the water, but my brain is protesting. It tells me: No, you are not going to dive here, are you crazy? No, you are not going!

It is fair to say that the best diving can often be found in some of the most unexpected places. When one thinks of the Sinai, the immediate image is of the spectacular vertical drop offs of Ras Mohammed, teeming with fish life. Venture further north and the canyons and blue hole of Dahab come to mind. But further north still and you have an entirely different kind of diving, the sort that allows you to get close to some of the rarer and most colourful of the Red Sea’s inhabitants.

For my buddy it was the first time he was diving in the Philippines. We had been one week on a live-aboard and were diving all around Cebu Island. Beautiful corals, wracks and turtles, we had seen it all. But now we were one week on the island Negros with the capital city Dumaguette. Our hotel was a luxury resort called Bahura. There we went diving on the black sand. Negros is an island created by many volcanoes, hence the black sand.

Diving from the beach

The Netherlands may not be the first destination you would think of when you are planning your next diving vacation. But there are a lot of possibilities for a diver in this small country. Every year thousands of mostly Dutch, Belgium, German and French divers travel to this northern European country to have a combination of diving and Dutch culture.