Product Description

This fully updated global guide to the world's top dive sites is an inspirational reference source for divers who wish to experience, personally or vicariously, the best diving the planet has to offer. Written by the experienced dive authors of New Holland's award-winning dive guides, the book is based on first-hand experience. Conservation is an important theme and the text is sensitive to conservation projects and issues.In addition to comprehensive mapping, the book features carefully selected superb quality underwater photography showing famous wrecks, a wide range of marine habitats and a huge diversity of species ranging from whale sharks to coral.Coverage starts with the Atlantic, from the west coast of north America, and proceeds west to east and north to south. Structured by oceans and seas, each section starts with a general overview of diving-related features and conditions. A large scale map shows the basic ocean topography and locates the featured dive regions to follow.Regional maps feature specific dive sites to help divers select and locate the type of diving experience they are looking for. Icons identify wreck dives, dive centres and emergency facilities with decompression chambers. These maps are cross-referenced with site text entries describing diving each site, highlighting special features and profiling dive conditions. For those inspired to travel to any of the featured sites or regions, there is an appendix with lists of travel and dive information, climate, best time to go, contacts, dive operators and emergency facilities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146119 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 300 pages

About the Author
Editor Jack Jackson is an advanced BS-AC diver who ran a sport diving operation in the Sudanese Red Sea for 12 years. He has been diving exotic locations around the world ever since. An award winning author and photographer, Jack has written and contributed to numerous books including New Holland's Diving with Sharks, Top Dive Sites of the World, two scuba diving manuals and three Dive Guides.

Customer Reviews

Good, but not excellent
As many other Scuba diver in the northern hemisphere, my dream dive vacation is somewhere with corals, warm water and tropical fish. Usually, books that claim to list the best dive sites or dive vacations in the world list places with all those treats I want and only places like that. Sites such as the northern Atlantic coast of USA, Scapa Flow in Scotland and the Mediterranean sea are excluded. These books are usually nothing more than hundreds of pictures and little if any fact about the dive sites.

Dive Atlas of the World: An Illustrated Reference to the Best Sites does not fall in that trap, it actually lists several non-tropical dive sites and does a decent job at describing what kind of diving one can expect in as diverse sites as Malta, Maldives and Manado.

The pictures are excellent, but only serve as illustrations to the text. What I would have wanted to see more of was practicalities on travelling to the described sites. This information is now nested away in the back of the book. What I did like was the information on coral reef ecology, on oceanography and other topics all divers should be aware of.

Overall, I would strongly recommend this book to divers who travel, plan to travel or just wish to dream about travelling.

A good source of inspiration
This is lavishly illustrated book that I suspect will appeal more to those who are thinking about where to start diving. It is really a coffee-table book. More serious divers are more likely to pick up a copy of the "Diver Travel Guide". The "Diver Travel Guide" is updated annually or at least very regularly. I'm fairly sure that I picked up a complimentary copy with "Diver" magazine but it can certainly be bought separately.

The "Diver Travel Guide" provides a concise description of each destination followed by a fact file which summarises the relative cost; water temperature and an indication of what thickness wetsuit to wear; visa requirements and inoculations. To be fair, similar information (though less detailed and nothing on relative costs and innoculations) is included as an appendix to the "Dive Atlas".

If what you are looking for is some inspiration about where to go diving you could do much worse than get a copy of "Dive Atlas of the World".