Dive sites

Cave or cenote Pass Pelagic Reef Shore dive Wall Wreck See the map

The silhouette of a diver heading down head-first toward the Palancar Gardens reef, the sun backlit at the surface, sea fans on the bottom

Palancar Reef

Yucatán and the Caribbean: Cozumel, cenotes, Playa del Carmen

6 to 34 mOpen WaterFrom November to July

BoatCurrent: variableVisibility 25 to 35 m

Palancar Reef is a five-kilometer reef off southwest Cozumel, cut into canyons, tunnels and pinnacles that you explore on a drift dive, from 6 to 34 meters.

PhilippinesPelagic

Monad Shoal and Kimud Shoal

Visayas: Cebu, Bohol and Negros

12 to 32 mAdvancedFrom January to May

BoatCurrent: variableVisibility 10 to 25 m

Monad Shoal and Kimud Shoal are two shoals off Malapascua where pelagic thresher sharks rise at dawn to be cleaned.

Thousands of silver sardines in a tight school in blue water, against the wall where a red brain coral stands out.

PhilippinesShore dive

Moalboal sardine run

Visayas: Cebu, Bohol and Negros

3 to 20 mOpen WaterFrom November to May

ShoreCurrent: lightVisibility 15 to 30 m

The Moalboal sardine run gathers several million fish into a shifting curtain, 20 or 30 m from Panagsama Beach.

A bluespotted ribbontail ray resting on the sand under a coral overhang, in turquoise water

TanzaniaReef

Mnemba Atoll

Zanzibar

2 to 30 mOpen WaterFrom July to October and from December to February

BoatCurrent: variableVisibility 15 to 30 m

Mnemba Atoll is an oval reef around a private islet, 3 kilometers off the northeast coast of Zanzibar, in a marine protected area, home to green turtles, dolphins and some 600 fish species from...

Misali Island seen from a plane, a triangle of forest edged by a white beach, sitting on a turquoise reef flat in a dark blue sea, in the haze

TanzaniaReef

Misali Island

Pemba

4 to 40 mOpen WaterFrom July to October and from December to February

BoatCurrent: variableVisibility 20 to 40 m

Misali is a reserve island of less than one square kilometer in the Pemba Channel, 10 kilometers from Chake Chake, with coral gardens that start at the beach, a wall rising from 80 to...

A large dusky grouper, with a dark white-spotted body and a golden belly, swims left along a rock wall lined with white gorgonians, with two Mediterranean chromis in the blue.

FranceReef

Mérouville (Lavezzi Islands)

French Mediterranean: Riviera, Provence and Corsica

17 to 36 mAdvancedFrom June to September

BoatCurrent: variableVisibility good in calm seas

Mérouville is a granite shoal southeast of the Lavezzi Islands, in the Bouches de Bonifacio reserve, between 17 and 36 m, where resident dusky groupers, some over 30 kg, come to hover one or...