What makes a great Dive Resort ? And what did you come here looking for ?

It mostly depends on the stage of your life your scubadiving career and your budget.
PADI an organisation who have brought scubadiving to the masses and coined the term ‘PADI DIVING’ and have enabled many people to learn fast, safely and with fun. Their founders John Cronin and Ralph Erickson from opposite end points met in the middle , middle of America and came up with the idea midway through a bottle of scotch !

“John Cronin, a scuba equipment salesman for U.S. Divers, and Ralph Erickson, an educator and swimming instructor, were concerned about the scuba diving industry. They felt that the current scuba certification agencies were unprofessional, didn’t use state of the art instruction and made it unnecessarily difficult for people to enter the sport. John and Ralph knew there had to be a safer, easy way for people to learn to breathe underwater.

In 1966, John brought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and thirty dollars to Ralph’s Illinois apartment in Morton Grove.  They decided it was time to start a scuba training organization. John insisted that the word “professional” be in the name of the company. Ralph wanted an “association of diving instructors.” After a few scotches, the acronym PADI was born:
Professional  Association  of  Diving  Instructor.”

Read More about the history of PADI here.

But you were here about finding a dive resort right ! Well read on. A resort can also be thought of as an area where there is a bunch of dive shops or a complex like a hotel with their own dive operation. But the best areas for scubadiving usually have developed away from the resorts we see even today. This is because the best scubadiving seems to be tucked away from development and that can be due to over fishing dynamiting etc so naturally the less populated areas of the globe seem to have sustained their reefs and the quality of the diving is superb. For other reasons for example in the pacific like truc, there are war wrecks of ships and planes.

My own personal favourite kind of area is a tropical region with enough development meaning that I can get dive gear safely in place without too much cost. I don’t personally favour the bigger resorts that you can find in the more developed areas. I prefer a few dive shops spread around small jettys who have beer o clock where you all swap diving stories after a good days diving. They are filled with young backpackers and learning divemasters all keen as mustard. And in the evening those beats get pumping or it’s a movie at the restaurant, Now ask me where those places are for me so far you can say , Roatan – Honduras, Koh Tao, Thailand, Bali Indonesia for a start. Fun times ahead.

I can say one thing for sure I wish I had discovered scuba sooner. Please discus this article and I will answer any of your questions oh yes please share a link to this article if you liked it, feel free to post about your experiences below.