31 January, 2007 |

World’s best diving-centers

Galapagos Islands
Galapagos Islands are very special islands. Here you will be impressed with the rocks from basalt and volcanic granite, planted with huge bushes of a black coral.  You can swim for a while with Galapagos penguins, and can be even see the rare starfish which have opened not so long ago. However immersing on Galapagos Islands - is not the entertainment for the beginners. You are obliged perfectly to be guided, able to define speed of current and to know one million different cunnings. One of the most interesting places for immersing on Galapagos Islands are the Darwin and Wolf islands, unsurpassed on beauty and quantity of sea inhabitants. Here sharks gather in flights, sometimes admitting skin-divers on a half-a meter distance.
Sipadan
The name of island Sipadan is considered with legends. Sipadan is located near to the northeast coast Borneo in Sulawesi Sea. Its area is only 12 hectares and it is possible bypassing it for half an hour. At first sight it looks like any other Malaysian islands: dense tropical vegetation, a ring of snow-white beaches. Sipadan is the extinct underwater volcano which has acquired with corals. It is well-known among divers first of all for the vertical reef wall leaving downwards almost on 700 meters that is in eight meters from local coast. Huge flights of barracudas and the fishes-parrots float there paying absolutely no attention to divers. Any fishing is absolutely forbidden here, so you may see many kinds of the exotic fish.
Malta
There is a set of diving-centers on Malta, besides all of them are well-known and solid. The most popular among divers are the islands Gozo and Comino. Small islands with coastal rocks from light yellow limestone involve with a unique structure: grottoes, caves, breaks… On a card where the best places for immersing are specified, coast Gozo is marked with badges: no matter where you dive, it will be interesting everywhere. The especial place included in all guidebooks - the Azure window, a huge stone arch, which is a symbol of the country. We advice you to dive into the Blue Hole; it is a well of 18 meters depth. You long go down downwards, and at last you appear as if at the bottom of the bank: on the one hand from you there is a huge grotto, with another hand - a stone arch, and above your head - a small sparkling circle where the sunrays are playing.
Maldives
Here there are huge centers, some of which serve even several islands at once. Their main priority is safety. On Maldives there are very strict rules of diving operate, and to the beginning diver, for example, it will be allowed to dive only on 20 meters depth. We advice you to stay at a luxurious hotel Kurumba Village, where the scuba diving school («Eurodivers») functions. All local entertainments are anyhow connected with the sea. Night immersing enjoys a special popularity. When the sun comes, the reef becomes unrecognizable. Familiar fishes change colors, starfishes, curtailed in ballin the afternoon, are coming out, as flowers.
Egypt
At northeast coast of Egypt there are such large resorts of the Red Sea as Hurgada and Sharm El Sheikh,  where the quantity of instructors of a scuba diving per capita is, apparently, the biggest in the world. Hurgada is an optimum place for the first output in the sea. Here there are more than forty places for immersing and more than hundred diving-centers. The only problem is an enormously high number of divers due to the cheap resorts and warm sea.

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