New feature: Live diver visibility reports!

There's nothing like a visibility report from a diver coming straight out of the water. Dive reports submitted to Marla are now live on the site for others to see. 

We group the dive visibility reports by the dive spot, so that you can see all recent visibility reports for that spot in one place. You can also share your dive report to help other divers with tips, share what you saw or what they should look out for. We invite all scuba-divers, freedivers, snorkelers and spearos to participate! 

Check the viz UK

The new simple form allows you you report what you saw, anything divers should look out for

How your diver report helps the visibility forecast

Your reports are crucial to make a Marla better tool for planning dives. Apart from sharing your on-the-ground experience with other divers, your reports help Marla to calibrate the dive conditions model to create better forecasts. The more dive reports you share, the better Marla can forecast future conditions. 

Limitations

We know that visibility is subjective and is hard to estimate rigorously. Yet, by aggregating multiple reports and mixing it with weather forecasts and satellite data, our algorithms can learn to classify conditions in four coarse ranges (1-3m, 3-5m, 5-8m, 8-12m) with remarkable alignment against divers’ estimates. Learn more on how we measure visibility in https://www.marla.blue/post/how-to-measure-undersea-visibility. 

What we’re working on now

• Improving the conditions data: We know visibility is just one aspect of diving. We are working on combining visibility with weather and sea conditions in one interface to allow for quick comparison between these various conditions across different dive spots. 

• Get notified: We want to make sure you never miss the days of perfect diving conditions by providing you with advance notifications of the top visibility spots around the coast. 

• Improving the algorithm: Our servers and engineers are working hard to crunch a decade worth of satellite and weather data to train better forecasting models. Stay tuned to our future updates!