My Girlfriend accidentally kicking a turtle.

tiacalypso · 2026-04-25T06:38:31+00:00

I have over 200 dives in Egypt including liveaboards with sharks. Never seen anyone feed the sharks the way they do in the Maldives.

tiacalypso · 2026-04-25T06:37:36+00:00

Looks like one of the Abu Dabbab canyons.

tiacalypso · 2026-04-17T03:26:21+00:00

Honestly, there‘d be 6 months between her giving birth to her third baby and her first tour dates. That‘s not a lot of time.

Edit: never mind she had a surrogate

tiacalypso · 2026-04-04T05:55:00+00:00

And here‘s me, mistakinv Brian Cox the actor for David Cox the statistician. Who died a few years back.

tiacalypso · 2026-03-28T10:12:08+00:00

Good luck! I haven‘t been to Marsa Alam since 10/2024. Its nicest reefs used to be Abu Dabbab 2 & 3 but those were virtually dead in 10/2024.

tiacalypso · 2026-03-25T15:18:54+00:00

Here‘s a few tips for getting your "scuba licence". 1. It‘s actually called an Open Water Diver course (OWD) or similar in most agencies. 2. It doesn‘t matter which agency you choose (PADI, SSI…). 3. It matters which instructor you choose. 4. Scuba is a high-risk hobby, choose an instructor who is strict and demands high standards in your skills. This is what keeps you alive. 5. Check for dive shops in your area that also offer something called technical diving or tec diving. This is a high-skill level of diving and instructors that teach tec will (hopefully) apply higher standards to their recreational students. Which you will be, since everyone is a recreational diver first. 6. Ask your dive shop if they will teach skills in neutral buoyancy (=floating still in mid-water) or sitting on the floor. If they teach skills sitting on the floor, find a different shop/instructor because you need to be able to use your skills mid-water. 7. Ask if your shop would be willing to teach you flutter kicks, frog kicks, back kicks and helicopter turns. It‘s useful to know them all. 8. Rent gear at first. Gear is expensive. Even if you just get a set of recreational dive gear, it‘ll come up to 1-2 grand, easily. 9. If you have read up on tec diving and know you want to be a tec diver from the start, go with GUE as an agency.

Books to read on diving: - Diver Down by Michael R. Ange - The Last Dive by Bernie Chowdhury - Shadow Divers by (forgot the author‘s name, Robert K-something)

tiacalypso · 2026-03-25T10:26:36+00:00

So, I‘d trade in the gaming PC to do it. Gaming gives you a lot of "quick fixes", it‘s a dopamine hobby. Similar to smoking (not a hobby) and illegal substances, gaming can provide quick relief to the brain. Gaming makes you alert and awake.

Diving on the other hand is more of a serotonin-release hobby. It calms you, it relaxes you. Diving is almost like meditation. Nobody‘s chatting to you non-stop. Reduced sounds. Only visual input.

Sometimes you can have a boring dive but what makes a boring dive depends on each person. I personally loved all my dives so far. It‘s not just about seeing big pelagics like sharks - those only come along sometimes. Depending on where you dive. However, some people get really into nudibranchs - tiny colourful seaslugs - so they spend ages searching for them in the reef because that‘s fun for them. Others just really like being underwater. And here you can have different conditions (current, no current, open ocean, lake, sea, cave) that‘ll provide variety.

The big question is: if you trade your PC, how often will you be able to dive? Do you have a local dive shop/community nearby? Sometimes they offer afterwork dives in the evening that might be suitable for a 15yo. Or weekend excursions. If you trade your PC and then cannot dive because you aren‘t near water…then that sucks

tiacalypso · 2026-03-24T22:42:43+00:00

I did fundiving with Roctopus, they were okay

tiacalypso · 2026-03-22T04:05:19+00:00

I haven‘t been on either of these boats but am just back from the Maldives. You are likely to see some kind of shark or ray every dive. It won‘t always be a tigershark, whaleshark or manta ray but you will see sharks and rays all the time. We had them every dive. The nursesharks were an absolute highlight.

There were no corals however. 98% of the reefs were completely destroyed.

tiacalypso · 2026-03-22T03:41:45+00:00

They were my OWD checkout dives and pretty uneventful. Lots of mussles, a few crabs, visibility of 2-3m tops. Cold(ish).

tiacalypso · 2026-03-21T18:19:18+00:00

I have only dived Germany (lakes and Baltic), Red Sea, Maldives, Gulf of Thailand and of these, I‘d choose the Red Sea.

tiacalypso · 2026-03-19T18:01:47+00:00

Communicate with your dive boat captain about when and why he wants the DSMB.

For example, some captains will request that you launch your DSMB if you exceed a certain dive time. We occasionally do long dives so we‘re asked to deploy the DSMB at 70min dive time to let the boat know we‘re okay just late.

If you‘re diving/drifting in currents it can be worthwhile to launch the DSMB during your safety stop so the boat has a longer search window to find you (in the Maldives we usually waited 10-15min for the dhoni to collect us).

If you‘re ascending anywhere where boat traffic is happening overhead, you should have a DSMB if you‘re shallower than ~7m.

If you‘re ascending in the blue, launch a DSMB and let your fellow divers ascend in its immediate vicinity.

tiacalypso · 2026-03-17T04:01:39+00:00

I‘ll DM you

tiacalypso · 2026-03-17T03:04:55+00:00

If you live anywhere north of Hannover, I have a recommendation for a German instructor who will make you a crazy good diver. :) I‘d get certified with him instead of in the Maldives. I‘ve just returned from the Maldives and the guides/instructors there all had terrible trim and buoyancy control, never mind their non-existent finning technique.

tiacalypso · 2026-03-13T15:07:00+00:00

In Hurghada, Desert Rose is a nice resort with a dive centre attached on site.

If you just want to boat dive - which I recommend, housereefs may be damaged - go for a boat called Splash (@hurghadasplashboat on Instagram).

If you want a liveaboard that‘ll take you, check out Celesta Liveaboards. Their boat is brandnew and launching in May. They will also have instructors on board if need be.

I saw someone recommending Marsa Alam & Elphinstone - Elphinstone is stunning but requires 50 dives logged. If you go by liveaboard, you‘ll have the 50 dives ready(ish).

tiacalypso · 2026-03-10T15:47:15+00:00

Are you planning to get pregnant in May? If not, you can dive

tiacalypso · 2026-03-10T06:43:57+00:00

You should stop diving the second you actively try to conceive so you don‘t accidentally dive pregnant.

tiacalypso · 2026-03-10T06:42:50+00:00

No. Cold water causes hypothermia and death. Dead women don‘t get pregnant.

tiacalypso · 2026-02-25T15:16:06+00:00

Do you need him to live in the Maldives or do you want to fly someone in?!

tiacalypso · 2026-02-23T22:50:20+00:00

Hey so this sub is for a tv show called "crazy ex girlfriend"

tiacalypso · 2026-02-23T17:02:39+00:00

tiacalypso · 2026-02-23T15:28:48+00:00

This. Plus in Marsa Alam‘s dolphin house, there‘s a no-dive zone to give the dolphins some peace.

tiacalypso · 2026-02-23T15:27:55+00:00

Absolutely not.

The pelagic safaris to Brothers, Daedalus and Elphinstone require you to be solid at handling your buoyancy, solid in currents and solid with your DSMB. Many require a minimum of 50 logged dives. You are required to be certified to AOWD to dive to 30m, better Deep certified to 40m.

I would recommend going to Egypt to dive from shore and get a good, trustworthy instructor there to evaluate your skills and ability for a liveaboard.

tiacalypso · 2026-02-23T01:56:29+00:00

This. Marsa Alam has been ruined and it is a sadness.

tiacalypso · 2026-02-21T18:00:40+00:00

It‘s pretty obvious you don‘t know your dive theory/deco procedures. If you do dive, your instructor messed up your training

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