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Top Dive Sites of Australia by Becca Saunders
Top Dive Sites of Australia by Becca Saunders
I've been there! That was my reaction on opening the pages of this coffee-table volume. Instead of yet another collection of underwater photographers' art, delectable but unattainable, Top Dive Sites of Australia is actually a very useful guide-book.
This sounds strange only when you realise that its publisher New Holland already publishes a successful series of dive-guides. I can only think that the Australian material did not fit into the publisher's well-tried formula, so it slipped it into the coffee-table pigeonhole instead.
The book covers most of Australia's popular diving destinations, and because it is written by an Australian the commentary has a comfortable Home Counties feel. There is a summary of recommended dive operators at the end of each section, though I was surprised there seemed so little choice in Queensland.
I suspect that the information on that state might be something of a plug for those companies that sponsored Becca Saunders' endeavours. In the short section on photography her partisanship is barely disguised by phrases such as 'nothing comes close to the crispness of this film... these are the finest strobes available... the original compact housing and still the best...' I wish it were that simple.
Many of the photographs are technically not that good, yet they often convey better what it might be like to be at a site than the cleverer type of photography would.
So many of us have some sort of connection with Australia that the planes through Singapore (where the book was printed) are full of Brits on their way there. If you are a diver you'll want to get in the water, even if you are ostensibly going to visit Auntie. This book will encourage you to pack your kit. John Bantin
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Top Dive Sites of Australia by Becca Saunders (New Holland, 020 7724 7773). Hardback, 160pp, £29.99
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