diving calendar

I dont know if this would be something that is possible to do on WP, but after reading a few posts lately regarding where to go and when to go, i thought that maybe it would be an idea to come up with a when is good to go calendar. I have just read a posting regarding diving South Africa and one of the first replies was when do you intend to go. Obviously you would be going to SA for sharks but you would want to go there when the best chance of action is possible. I mean you wouldnt want to book a trip for the sardine run going in december if it happens in june/july.

Just a thought.

Stew

Great idea - maybe some sort of Google Earth overlay? Pick a month and sites show in red, yellow, green, whatnot depending on whether it's the 'high season', or caveats like hurricane season, etc.?

I'd love a tool like this, as I've only got experience in the Caribbean for the most part and have limited opportunities as to when I can travel.

You want sharks? How about a German WWII submarine as well as a ton of other wrecks.... Beaufort, North Carlina. Takes about two hours to get out to some excellent wrecks and structure that are usually well populated with sand tiger sharks and bull sharks. Best time is May through October. Anytime past October is a crap shoot with the weather (hurricanes & tropical storms). Not only is the diving great but the barbeque pork sandwiches are pretty damn good too!

Bob

Good example, Bob. I am interested in NC, but if I wanted to go in Dec/Jan timeframe, how is the diving? Late enough I'm outside of hurricane season, but colder, and from what I can find there's a significant chance of being blown out or having low viz. Would be nice to have some sort of per-location 'calendar' database - graphical or otherwise - available to Wetpixelers. Criteria could include:

--price (high, low, shoulder season)

--weather (chance of rain/wind/chop, major storm seasons, local summer/winter)

--water temp/visibility characteristics by season

--particular sea life (whale shark migration, whale spawning, likelihood of sharks schooling, coral spawn timeframes, etc)

Well if you can all wait just a little bit longer... such a website is under development that has all of this info and a lot more to help everyone decide their dive destinations depending on when they can take vacation and what they want to see etc. The user will be able to select more than one parameter menu to better help the site match them to ideal destinations.

Certainly though I am interested to hear from anyone that has ideas on parameters they would like to see included - I don't claim to be a genius, and I always expected that there would be something obvious that we overlooked. Selecting from some menus will give results down to the dive center/resort/liveaboard level, otherwise it will just recommend destination areas.

So far we have it set up so that the user can select from one or more of the following menu types -

- best time of year

- distance from home (future versions will include flying time from gateway cities)

- diving experience

- tech or rebreather friendly

- above water weather (not everyone likes it stinking hot and humid)

- suitable for non-diving partners

- suitable for families

- type of underwater photography

- big animal encounters

etc etc - you get the idea

Big Blue Planet holds a lot of this type of info. I use it quite a lot for researching. Look forward to seeing your site RedSeaDiver!

Cheers, Simon

I came across this a few weeks ago and immediately bookmarked it. It's useful, but would love something more interactive.

http://www.diveworldwide.com/information/calendar.html

Good luck with your site. do let us know when its done.

Jason