LAM FACIAL PLASTICS

Hi Dr. Lam,

I see you're an avid scuba diver! I'd just like to know where about you have dived and which has been your favourite location? If you haven't tried the Sinai peninsula in Egypt it really is spectacular and worth a visit!

Hi,
I have not had the chance to dive on the Sinai peninsula but have heard a lot of good things about it. Thanks for the advice. I have dived in Cozumel, Cancun, Belize, Bonaire, Galapagos, Caymans, Roatan (Honduras), Hawaii, Truk Lagoon, Palau, Florida, Turks & Caicos, and Bali. Out of all those places here are my top 3 and why:
1. Truk Lagoon- By far my favorite. I did a live aboard on the Truk Aggressor and dived flat profile dives at 70 to 100 ft into all these sunken Japanese merchant ships. It was amazing: picture all of these old ships that are totally encrusted with coral. I sat in the cockpit of a zero fighter plane inside the hull of the ship. I dived through the engine rooms, bathrooms (heads), through cargo bays, big blown out sides of the ship, and control rooms. There were still old sake bottles, ammunition, and records (that is what we had before ipods and CDs for you young folk) still on deck. The Japanese were pretty short back then. The operating tables looked like 4 feet long! The last day, I did a staged decompression dive to top deck of the San Francisco Maru at about 150 feet under water where I saw huge tanks and mines still there. These old boats are going fast and may be undivable in the near future so my recommendation is go now if possible. I also spent a day or so before then hitting the Blue Corner in Palau which I thought was a bit overrated (sorry). However, I really loved diving in Jellyfish lake. Picture 1000s of jellyfish all over you. These jellyfish lost their ability to sting since there are no natural predators in this land-locked salt lake.
2. Galapagos- I did a live aboard there too. Amazing! My suggestion to any of you who are offered a land/sea versus sea package, DO THE LAND/SEA! even if you are hard-core diver like me. You simply will miss a lot of the Galapagos if you don't walk on volcanic rock and visit the turtles, sea lions, sea iguanas, and crabs on land. It is amazing. Diving with tiny penguins, sharks, sea lions, sea iguanas is unreal! Did I use up my allotment of exclamation points? It was a blast.
3. Cozumel- I may have romanticized my time in Cozumel but it was my first dive experience post-certification back in the early 90s. The nassau groupers, sea eels, and rapid drift dives made this great. I also fondly remember staying with my medical school friends in cheap housing with cheap beers and cheap fresh fish every night. Great!
thanks for the fun question,
sml