Coral reef and soft corals in Misool, southern Raja Ampat
Destination guides · Fine prints · Small-group trips

Dive the destinations that earn it.

Every place on this site was scored in the water before it was ever sold. destinations. of them has an A+. Most of them don’t.

Read the guides See the prints
7,000+
Dives, warm and cold, across reefs, wrecks, walls and blue water
30
Years of underwater image-making. Three of them professional.
21
Destinations scored on the same rubric, honestly
33
Resorts, liveaboards and operators reviewed separately from the place
The Guides

The ten that scored highest

Sixty on the place, sixty on the operator, published as percentages. The full index is sortable, filterable, and includes the ones I'd tell you to skip.

Destination Level Last visited Underwater Operator Overall Grade
All destinations
Fine Prints

Bring home more than a memory

Signed limited editions of twenty, printed to order and shipped from Canada. Open editions for everything else.

Pelagics collection
Pelagics
Sharks, mantas, open water
 Reefscapes collection
Reefscapes
The reef as subject
 Macro collection
Macro
The small stuff
 Creature Portraits collection
Creature Portraits
One animal, close
Browse all prints Licensing and editorial enquiries → Underwater licensing
Manta ray in open water
Guided Trips

Small groups of serious shooters. One operator I have dived myself. A destination I would pay to dive again.

Not every destination on this site is one I would return to, which is rather the point of scoring them honestly. Trips only go to the ones I would. Groups stay small enough that you get camera time rather than queue time, and the week is measured in dives rather than days.

  • Small groups — capped by what the operator can seat, never padded to fill it
  • Photography guidance in the water, not a slideshow after dinner
  • Destinations chosen on score, never on commission
  • Difficulty stated up front — you'll know before you book whether it suits you
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Miles Nurse, underwater photographer
Who's taking you

Thirty years, seven thousand dives, and a strong opinion about most of them

I'm Miles Nurse — PADI Master Instructor, underwater photographer for three decades, and someone who has spent enough time on badly-run dive trips to care a great deal about running good ones.

The scoring exists because dive-travel writing is almost entirely promotional. Every destination is world-class, every reef is pristine, every operator is the best. That isn't useful to anyone deciding where to spend a year's dive budget and the annual leave to go with it.

More about me
Prototype — not live