Global diving travel has become increasingly easy over the last decade or so, providing easy access to a growing number of tropical and exotic destinations. So, for many divers residing in cooler climates or new to the sport, it is tempting to look only towards these warm distant destinations and perhaps ignore the wealth of marine life on their own doorstep.

Sulawesi is one of those places on nearly every diver’s bucket list. If not, it ought to be. A dozen years ago, people would have thought you daft to go diving there, much less build a dive resort in an area dominated by dark volcanic sand. Yet in Sulawesi there are nearly two dozen resorts vying for divers’ dollars, yen and euros.

Sliding into brackish water riddled by a seasonal downpour might not be everybody’s idea of a week-end in the Wild West...but for the frustrated winter diver that I am, there is sometimes nothing like the peaty waters of Connemara.

Cozumel combines the great reefs that one might find at the best dive spots around the warm Mexican Gulf waters with the laid back island life, where everything is close enough..

Lake Thingvellavatn on Iceland. In more than one sense this place is wondrous and mystic. Geologically, the Thingvellir area is part of a fissure zone running through Iceland, being situated on the tectonic plate boundaries of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The faults and fissures of the area make evident the rifting of the earth’s crust.