A day of free diving in around the thermal exhaust vents at Electric Beach, Oahu. Fish and turtles love to congregate in the warm water pumping from the pipes. Strong swimmers can free dive into the exhaust stream and rocket hundreds of feet out to sea. Weeeeeeee!

Eons ago during the last Ice Age, an ancient waterfall cut a massive gorge through the very foundations of the island of Roatan. Millennia later, the ten-storey canyon at Spooky Channel rests just under the ocean surface, inviting Advanced Open Water Divers to shine their torches into this monolithic marvel. You begin the dive in murky green shallows of the Sandy Bay lagoon. The eerie visibility for which this site earns its “spooky” status will gradually engulf you as you follow the rocky bottom deeper into the grotto. You’ll feel almost overwhelmed as the channel walls slowly rise and close in from both sides. At 12m/40ft, you’ll plunge through a large dark hole leading straight down.* The sun is quickly » read more «

The phenomenal underwater and travel photography of Lia Barrett now has a new home on the web at http://www.liabarrettphotography.com. Lia and I go back a few years when I was a scuba diving instructor at Coconut Tree Divers on the island of Roatan, Honduras. When I first met her, she was helping film the hilariously disastrous Roatan Movie— the making which was infinitely funnier than the final result. We later collaborated on photo shoots for a few web projects around the island. Lia probably holds the world record for most time spent inside a homemade submarine (not including Karl Stanley and Barry, of course). For theses images, she was crouched for hours in a tiny spherical dome. She had to » read more «