Diving in the Galapagos: a first-timer guide
The Galapagos Islands are a dream, a promise, an overwhelming expectation. The Galapagos Islands deliver. But don’t believe it …
How I almost gave up writing about Ocean Conservation
Do you know the legend of the hummingbird? One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream, they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every …
The perfect scuba diving bag doesn’t exist?
#NeverWithoutMyGear. It took me only a year after my open water certification to understand how much I hated renting scuba diving gear in dive centres: never the right size, questionable maintenance, bad habits of other scuba divers (you know what I’m talking about), you name it. Before I went on my first big scuba diving adventure of 5 weeks around Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, I …
Scuba diving in Hawaii: my ultimate 2-week itinerary
“Are you getting married, Florine?”, “Did you go on honeymoon?”- “Whaaaat? Nooo…“ This is pretty much the type of conversation I had on and on, before and after my 2 week trip to Hawaii. The reason? The Hawaiian Archipelago seems such a fantasy destination beyond reach that most people believed it had to be for my big day. For sure, seen from Europe, going …
My top 10 dives of 2017
The New Year is the perfect moment to look back at another year that passed. Last year, I was surprised of what I achieved in a year, but when I look back at 2017, 22 scuba diving locations in 8 different countries in 10 months, it makes me eager to know what will happen in 2018! From ice diving in the French Alps to …
Shore diving in Maui: Hawaii’s best-kept secret
The Hawaiian Archipelago is full of bucket list dives with exciting adventures such as diving in the crater of a volcano or night diving with manta rays, but all of these scuba diving trips come at a high price tag. To be clear, I have rarely paid so much for a dive. At the same time, I was not expecting I could go shore diving …
Shore diving in Honaunau, Big Island
It was my last dive in Hawaii after my manta ray night dive in Kona but I didn’t know it yet when I entered the water. I was supposed to dive next at Old Airport in Kona, but as the weather deteriorated during the day, it was my final one as I had plans to go to a higher altitude to visit the Volcano …
Manta ray night dive in Kona, Hawaii
I heard and read many stories on how Kona became such a famous place about diving with manta rays at night, becoming a bucket-list dive for adventurous scuba divers worldwide. While I think diving in Maui is a better choice for avid scuba divers visiting, Big Island is getting all the spotlight with the manta ray night dive in Kona. I had to check …
Diving in lava tubes in Hawaii: will you dare to do it?
To fly from Japan to Maui, I had to make a choice between flying via Oahu (Honolulu) or Big Island (Kona). Given the possibility of seeing lava flowing into the ocean or night diving with a ballet of manta rays, I decided I could give up on Waikiki Beach and Pearl Harbour Memorial in Oahu this time. After 11 days of exploring Maui and …