Facts are free, wording is not. We never copy text, tables or photos from others: we measure for ourselves, write for ourselves, and cite the source.
This is our own working method, not legal advice. When in doubt about a specific case, we put it to a lawyer, not to ourselves.
A depth, a fee or a year is a fact and cannot belong to anyone. The sentence in which someone else writes that fact down can. So we always write afresh and check the fact at the source.
A collection built with substantial investment — a dive-site database, a table of fees, a species list — is protected, even if every single fact is free. We build our own dataset from fieldwork and primary sources.
A short passage in quotation marks, with author and source, in a text that makes its own argument. No summaries that replace the original, no quotes as filler.
Every image on this site is our own photo or is used under written licence, with the photographer credited. We do not use images from search results, social media or other guides, not even “for illustration”.
Laws, ordinances and officially published decisions are free of copyright and may be reproduced verbatim, with a reference. Other government documents may be reused under the rules that apply to them.
We do not copy ratings, stars or user photos from booking or review sites. Our assessment is our own fieldwork, and we say so.
STINAPA, Cargill, TWR and dive schools are named descriptively, without logos and without any suggestion of partnership or endorsement.
Machine-generated text can be a first draft. We publish only after the editors have checked the fact, rewritten the text and recorded the source. An AI version without field checks remains a draft.
What we make ourselves we release freely: reuse keeps the facts in circulation with the source attached. Photos are different, because they cost travel time and dive tanks.
A correction costs us a day, not an argument. We amend the page, set a new check date and record at the bottom what has changed. If an error affects someone's safety, we remove the claim until we have checked it ourselves in the field.
Tell us and we will rewrite or remove it, without first asking whether we are legally obliged to. A guide who spent ten years on a list does not deserve to have us retype that list in an afternoon.