Rostin Marine, Tarawa Island, May 1994. "The guy is a tropical fish collector but will take you diving outside or inside the lagoon on a small motor boat. Water temp 80­85 degrees, 80­200 foot visibility, schools of sharks, turtles. NAUI instructor on premises. English spoken. Safe profiles ­­ computer generates profiles. Provides tanks and weights ­­ about $60. Stay at Tarawa motel for condo­like accommodations, right on the water. The 'Hotel' is not as good as it looks and full of stuffy European travelers. Oxygen available at fish collectors. Hospital on island. Plane every three or four days - don't get bent." Leslie Faruel, Lahaina, HI

Dive Kiribati, Captain Cook Hotel, July, 1995. "Christmas Island is not easy to get to with once­weekly air service from Honolulu, but worth the trip. Dive site with varied fish life, including lionfish and clown triggers; also white tip reef sharks, mantas, dolphins, large napoleon wrasse. Top notch dive operation using outrigger dive boat, accommodating to group's requests. Up to five dives daily possible including night diving, which revealed many bizarre crabs. Impressive large clams with beautiful indecent blue mantas. . . . Hotel is simple, clean, and adequately equipped with basic amenities including plenty of hot water and a small refrigerator in each room. Meals were good with lots of seafood. Locals are friendly, and island is picturesque with many coconut palms and a huge lagoon. Sea bird nesting sites were interesting." Joseph Nissin, Boulder, CO

Dive Kiribati, August, 1995. "Dive Kiribati was great. They met us at the airport, delivered us to the hotel and had us on the boat diving the same morning. Kim Anderson, the owner, and Russell Bauman, the divemaster, were great guys, personable and professional. They basically let us do what we wanted and as we were the only divers that week we had the run of the boat. . . . Diving is from an outrigger and neither getting in the water nor out of it was a hassle. We did three dives a day usually, many as long as an hour. The balance of the day we spent snorkeling with as many as 6-8 mantas and schools of dolphins numbering 200-300. The boat would normally drop us off in the middle of them or would tow us along through the schools. It was great. The visibility was variable from 40-150 ft., depending on the tide. Some dives were in surge, some had currents. There were no depth limits but we never went below 120 ft. There wasn't a lot of big stuff in the water. Few sharks, mainly white tips. Mantas were everywhere and eagle rays were not uncommon. We repeated sites only if we asked to. They took where we wanted to go and where weather allowed. There were lots of smaller things to see; lobster, eels and swarms of small fish on just about every dive. Many spots are as of yet unnamed and a great deal of the diving there is at as of yet undove spots. Most diving is done in the 60 ft. up range and the underwater topography varies greatly. They try to do at least one beach dive a week at the Bay of Wrecks, a spot wholly dependent upon the weather. We were there on a moderate day and neither beginners nor people with little or nor shore dive experience should try it. Trust the staff. Our beach dive, Hadas Garden, was fantastic with great walls of lettuce coral and 150 ft. plus viz. Fills were normally 3200 psi and never lower than 3000 psi. Our gear was removed from the boat and rinsed every night. . . . In some ways we expected more from the diving, however, we really had a great time largely due to Kim and Russell at Dive Kiribati and would recommend them and Christmas Island. Note: There is a chamber on the island at Dive Kiribati." Mark A. Davis, Santa Ana, CA

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