You may have noticed we have an all new website design. Hooray! It is rather similar to the old site. But there are many new features, and we once again have a system for you to share your snorkeling stories and questions with the community.
Why the Update? Two Reasons
- We were with our previous website building and hosting company for 16 years, and their product and service were starting to have problems. In particular their system for our community shared stories and questions was having glitches, that led to us turning off that functionality, which was a big bummer.
- The other reason is because most of you are now visiting our website on smaller screened phones and tablets, instead of PCs, and the new site is easier to use on those devices.
The Goal Was Easy Reading and Useful Navigation
Most websites these days drive us nuts. So many ads, moving things and annoying pop-ups in the way of reading. So the goal was to make the new site super easy for you to find what you want, with clear navigation, table-of-contents on longer pages, search boxes, and more useful internal links. And then you can enjoy reading and viewing, with larger fonts and pictures and videos, with no distracting elements. There are no ads, pop-ups or social sharing buttons. We got rid of all the junk.
And you don’t have to wait for pages to load, because the new site is super fast. There is a little box at the bottom about cookies and privacy, that is required by law, but we kept it nearly comically simple, and it goes away if you hit agree. Although our Privacy Policy page is very detailed, and we do take your personal privacy seriously.
What’s New?
Top Navigation Bar
On big screens, the navigation buttons up top are always visible. On small screens you just click the little hamburger button in the top left. Click the magnifying glass to search the site. And if you are down the page, just scroll up a little, and the navigation bar will reappear on the top.
You Can Share Your Snorkeling Stories and Questions Again!
Yay! We are the most excited about this. We love hearing your snorkeling adventures and stories and seeing your pictures, and being able to share it all with our snorkeling community. We personally moderate every single post and comment. So the information is organized, on topic, and never a nasty comment.
So please share your stories and questions. Tell the tale of a wonderful place you visited, or ask a question about a place you are considering. You can now drag and drop up to five pictures with each story. The community post form is at the bottom of this page.
Want to get email notices of new comments on a community post you are interested in or originally authored? You can, even if you have not left a comment yet. Look for those options under the comment box.
You used to be able to get an email notice whenever there was a new post on our site, but that is not an option in the new system. But in every newsletter and on our news page on the website (see below), we will share links to all the new posts.
New Snorkeling News
The What’s New button on our site takes you to our Snorkeling News blog page. On big screens it is up in the right hand corner of the site. That is the place to check for lots of new posts, entertaining and interesting snorkeling related news items, and to see pictures and videos from our past trips. In fact, we are moving away from social media almost entirely, and will do all of our sharing with you on our Snorkeling News page, and in our free monthly newsletter.
Beautiful Snorkeling Videos
We have a new video hosting service that hosts wonderful looking snorkeling videos, with no ads. We plan to release a lot of snorkeling videos this year of new and past adventures, that will only be on our website. We will be closing our YouTube account. We have never liked the video quality, particularly the appearance of the water in snorkeling videos. And the ads drive us nuts.
See an example of a short video we just shared here.
RSS Feed New Address
It’s a rare bird that still uses an RSS reader. If you are that rare bird, and received our feed before, it has a new address: www.tropicalsnorkeling.com/feed
Basically RSS software goes out and grabs notices about new content on favorite websites, and brings it home to you.
Website Problems?
Needless to say, there is a lot new on the website. If you find any problems, bad links, or other glitches, please let us know by replying to this newsletter or use our contact page. Thanks!
Congratulations! The updated website is terrific and I’m so glad to have the community forum back. Thanks and happy snorkeling!
Thanks Kent. Yes, we are very happy to have the community sharing available again.