There is no adventure than diving. Whether you are novice, or whether you were been diving for so many years, there is always something new, fascinating or challenging about venturing into the underwater world. Your mind may be mesmerized by clouds of colourfull fish, your curiosity raised by the mysterious remains of sunken ships or your creativity awakened by the art of underwater photography. Your diving interests may range from a casual pastime pursued on vacation, to a constant passion, or even a career. Diving offers something new for everyone.Diving in Andamans is a unique lifetime experience. The coastal water surrounding theses islands is the abode of one of the richest coral reef ecosystem is the world. The specialty is that, here the coral reefs and underwater formations are undamaged by human activity. The best season for diving is from December to April.
Many of the islands are surrounded by fringing reefs, often several hundred meters wide and separated from the shore by a lagoon of similar width. There are also more steeply undulating hills of raven volcanic lava, which makes for some unusual diving.
There are plenty of steeply sloping and shallow reefs suitable for snorkeling.Large pelagics are plentiful in these waters, as are a variety of sharks. Large schools of hammerhead often patrol the waters away from the reefs and Grey, Whitetip, Nurse and leopard sharks are found closer inshore. Silvertip and Ocean Whitetips also sometimes appear out of the deep blue beyond. Enormous manta Rays are also often seen.Few dive sites near to South Andaman Island/Port Blair
Cinque Island One of the best dive destinations in the island, it has clear emerald water with a visibility of upto 80 feet. The deep dive offers a terrific variety of marine life, including black coral, sightings of sharks and is ideal for the experienced diver.
North Point: This site at Cinque Island is mostly highlighted by sponges and small corals and diversity of fish life.
Fish Rock near Passage Island offers an extremely colourful dive. The topography consists of rocky slopes, boulders and drop-offs, featuring large fan of corals and plenty of sponges, Below 25m, the rocks are covered in small bushy soft corals in numerous hues. Hard corals are not so evident. Grey and Whitetip Reef and Reef Sharks are almost always in the vicinity as are Nurse Sharks. Among the rest of the marine life are Eagle rays. Potato Cod, large coral groupers, fusiliers, suitlips, turtles, batfish, bumphead. Parrotfish,Squrielfish, curious and friendly oriental sweetlips, surgeonfish, yellow Tangs, Triggerfisk, tuna, Rainbow runners and many spices of trevally.
Bala Reef: On the western side of little Andaman, Bala Reef spreads over 4-5 sq.km amd is said to be one of the best sites in the Anadamans for coral-with vibrant colours.
Snake Island off Corbyn’s Cove beach. This site offers awesome rock faces and spectacular dive landscape. Marine life includes Trigger fish, Grunts, Goatfish and Rays.
Corruption Rock : Corruption Rock sticks out between Chidiyatapu and Rutland Island. The dive site is on the western side of the rock and is made up of big underwater boulders. The corals are not brilliant but the craggy undersea landscape of boulders is stunning. A fantastic wonderland of gullies, channels , ridges and canyons. Look out for giant napoleons and eagle rays, huge snappers, schooling fusiliers, banner and unicorn fish, Dolphins, tuna and reef sharks have also been sighted here.
Rutland Island: The shallow waters near to the island have a good representation of most smaller fish and coral, and a good place for training open water divers. There is a ship wreck site also.
Havelock Island: This is located approximately 50kms from Port Blair by inter-island ferry. There is a range of largely unexplored dive sites rich in underwater marine life.
Dive sites near to the Havelock Island
Mac Point Mostly hardcorales and their inhabitants are found. Usually good visibility, dugongs have been spotted here.
Aquarium is a fringing reef with lots of ‘fishtraffic’. Usually good visibility, mostly hardcorales.
Barracuda City Tons of fish, sometimes turtles, mostly hard and some soft corals. Rather suitable for experienced divers.
Turtle Bay is an easy pleasant dive site not exceeding 14 meters. Rays are found in the sand and with luck turtles.
Seduction Point A huge rock with different kind of aquatic life. Napoleans can be seen. The shallow part is full with staghorn corals and its inhabitants.
Lighthouse is a huge divesite, suitable for any kind of dives. Huge variety of soft and hard corals. Perfect for nightdives.
The Wall is a huge dive submerged rock. The wall drops down to a maximum of 55 meters and is full with life. Huge forests of softcorals plus schools of fish circling you, makes it always a memorable dive.
Pilot Reef near to Havelock is a huge block of prestine hardcorals. At the bottom(max 24 meters) ‘canyons’ are stretching out. Leopard and White Tip Sharks have been sighted.
Minerva ledge at Havelock is even bigger block of hard corals. Tons of fish even bigger block of hardcorals. Tons of fish, usually good visibility and the possibility of seeing sharks makes it one of the top dive sites.
Campbell Shoaloff North Button Island.
The bottom of this site is covered in mainly hardcorals, with sporadic sandy patches and hosts a multitude of reef animals. The marine life includes Whitetip Reef Sharks, large cod and groupers, Coral Trout, Blue and Golden-banded fusilers, Giant Trevally and a host of colourfull reef-fish.
Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park, Wandoor Hundreds of colourfull varieties of coral reef fishes can be seen in the park. Some of these are clownfish, butterfly fish, surgeon fish, angel fish, parrot fish, bat fish and groupers. Whitetip shark, hammer headed shark, Manta ray and blue fin jack are also occasionally seen. More than 50 tyres of corals are found in the fringing type of coral reefs in the park. Some important coral varieties found here are Acropora, Pocillopora, Montipora, Leptoseris, Fungia, Portis, Tubipora and Gorgonians.
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