​Viewing a Manta Ray is a dream for a lot of people and has been described as one of the most breath taking experiences a diver can have… but did you realise you don’t have to be a Scuba Diver to see them! We have seen mantas whilst snorkelling as well as diving and nothing could prepare us for how we would feel when we actually had our first encounter seeing these majestic giants of the ocean.

​We have been lucky to have a few experiences with manta rays that weren’t just fleeting glimpses, we have hung around watching them feeding and being cleaned for hours. 

I would love to share our amazing encounters with you and, if you aren’t a huge manta fan, I hope you will at least have learnt more about them afterwards.

We feel you can never have enough manta action, and we definitely still want more!!

I love wreck dives, it’s as simple as that. If I hear of a shipwreck which can be dived when I am visiting a country, then sign me up, I’m there baby!
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If you love your scuba diving then the USS Liberty Wreck off the north coast of Bali is somewhere you should add to your diving bucket list. It regularly charts in the World’s Top 10 Wreck Dives and it’s easy to see why. On the day we dived her; a hot February Monday morning, the sea temperature was 29 degrees, the visibility easily 25 metres and the conditions were calm and relaxing – what more can you ask for in a dive?

​As I sat on the balcony of our homestay in Indonesian Borneo watching turtles feeding on seagrass in front of me, I knew I was in a new-found paradise. After dinner, the sky was so clear, stars were visible sparkling in the black night sky, I couldn’t resist laying down to enjoy them, I mean, how often in life do you get the opportunity to look at an unpolluted sky? Oh look – there’s a shooting star, can it get any better than this?

Let’s hope so, the next day we were going to Sangalaki to look for the majestic manta rays. We had already spotted a small pod of dolphins on the boat journey to the island so we already knew that this place had potential to deliver!

When we first told friends we were going to Borneo most people asked “where??”. It is surprising how few people know about the third largest island in the world; everyone has heard of the Amazon rainforest but Borneo’s is actually older at 140 million years ... so why is this Country still largely unheard of?

Borneo is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny nation of Brunei (think “Sultan of Brunei” and the wealth that is there!) so maybe this causes people confusion??

This ancient biodiverse land is full of fascinating statistics and is home to half of all known plant and animal species - some aren’t found anywhere else in the world apart from Borneo. We have visited this beautiful Country on two occasions (so far) ... so how about I tell you about our amazing experiences and hopefully you will consider paying a visit yourself!

Scuba divers are always discussing which is the world’s number one dive site and it is true that there are many, many top contenders. Sipadan rates highly on many people’s list and on 16 September 2016, Scuba Travel voted Barracuda Point on the island of Sipadan as the number one dive site in the world. It was also voted number one by the legendary Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the naval officer, explorer, conservationist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of marine line.

In his film Borneo: The Ghost of the Sea Turtle (1989, Jacques Cousteau said: "I have seen other places like Sipadan, 45 years ago, but now no more. Now we have found an untouched piece of art”

But why?

Diving in Borneo is amazing, it’s as simple as that. Not only does it have one of the world’s most interesting places to search for macro-life but also one of the world’s top diving sites on its doorstep – Sipadan!

So far, we have visited twice with a plan to return again and and on all occasions we stayed at Scuba Junkie on the island of Mabul. We honestly cannot big this place up enough and will wax lyrical about it given the opportunity!

We chose Scuba Junkie because of the 5* reviews on Trip Advisor; they didn’t just live up to our expectations, they exceeded them, in fact I would say they blew them out into the stratosphere!  Seriously, I should have shares in this place for how much I rave about it.

​Cyprus is captivating. It has something for everyone, and there are many things to do in Cyprus; it has beautiful beaches, you can visit archaeological and historical sites, if you want to party there are plenty of options, plus don’t forget snorkelling and diving.

Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean and divided into two cultures, the Greek Cypriots occupy the South, and Turkish Cypriots the North East. 
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But what things did we do in Cyprus for it to leave such a lasting impression? Let us tell you how this picturesque country captivated us.