About
Who makes ScubaSites
ScubaSites is an independent, dive-first guide to the world's dive sites, starting with the Maldives. It is written and maintained by a diver, for divers — with sources you can check and honesty about what we don't know.
Xiaoxiao Tang (小小唐旅行者)
PADI Advanced Open Water · 400+ logged dives
The site is run by a genuine recreational diver — PADI Advanced Open Water certified, with more than 400 logged dives. That real, in-water experience shapes how sites are described: what a dive actually feels like, who a site suits, and where the honest cautions are. Where a site has been dived first-hand, the write-up draws on that; where it hasn't, it says so and leans on cross-checked published sources instead of inventing experience.
How these guides are built
Every dive site page is assembled from more than one source, and the process is the point:
- Curated open data. The base layer of dive sites comes from OpenStreetMap (via the dive-vibe-community dataset, under the ODbL). We de-duplicate it, correct mis-located points, drop entries that aren't really dive sites, and assign each to its atoll — that cleaning is our own work.
- Multiple independent data sources. Pages layer in real ocean data (Open-Meteo monthly sea-surface temperature and wave height), scientific species records near each site (OBIS occurrence data), and, for manta and whale-shark sites, published research from the Manta Trust and MWSRP.
- Hand-researched signature sites. The best-known dive sites are re-written by hand from cross-checked sources — dive operators, resort dive centres, research bodies and diver reports — with the sources listed on the page.
Our honesty policy
Diving is a safety-related activity, and getting it wrong has real consequences. So we hold a few lines:
- We cite our sources and date our data. Scientific and ocean figures link back to where they come from.
- We don't invent coordinates, numbers, dates, or first-hand experiences. Where something is uncertain, we hedge it or leave it out.
- We don't oversell. If mantas or whale sharks are seasonal and never guaranteed at a site, we say so — even when it would be more clickable not to.
- Photos are illustrative of the animals and habitats you may encounter, not claimed to be shot at the exact site.
Contact
Corrections, questions, or a recent dive report from a site are all genuinely welcome — this guide gets better the more real divers feed into it. Reach the author at info.ai.speeds@gmail.com.
ScubaSites is an independent project and is not affiliated with PADI, the Manta Trust, MWSRP, OBIS, Open-Meteo, or OpenStreetMap; those names refer only to the certifications and data sources cited. Nothing here replaces professional training or an up-to-date local dive briefing — see our safety notice in the footer.