Dive sites: pelagic

A scalloped hammerhead swimming toward the lens in blue water, two more hammerheads behind it and a cloud of small fish above the rocky bottom.

Costa RicaPelagic

Dirty Rock

Cocos Island

15 to 40 mAdvancedFrom June to November

LiveaboardCurrent: strongVisibility 15 to 30 m

Dirty Rock is a guano-whitened pinnacle off the north of Cocos Island, with walls that drop to 40 meters.

Aerial view of the long Le Diamant beach lined with turquoise water, Diamond Rock offshore and Morne Larcher, a green hill, on the right

FrancePelagic

Diamond Rock

French West Indies: Guadeloupe and Martinique

5 to 40 mAdvancedFrom December to May

BoatCurrent: strongVisibility up to 25 m in the dry season, less from June to November

Diamond Rock is a 175 m volcanic pinnacle 2 km off the south coast of Martinique, in the current of the Saint Lucia Channel, where you dive a narrow crevice at around 20 m...

The Daedalus lighthouse, a black and white striped tower standing on the reef, with its buildings and metal jetty, at sunset

EgyptPelagic

Daedalus Reef

Southern Red Sea, Egypt

5 to 40 mExperiencedFrom April to November

LiveaboardCurrent: strongVisibility 25 to 40 m

Daedalus Reef is an isolated reef in the middle of the Red Sea, 90 kilometers from Marsa Alam, rising from 550 meters deep to a lighthouse.

A gray sunfish with pale spots, seen three-quarters on in open blue water, its long dorsal and anal fins stretched out, surrounded by small reef fish.

IndonesiaPelagic

Crystal Bay

Bali and Nusa Penida

5 to 30 mAdvancedFrom July to October

BoatCurrent: strongVisibility 20 to 40 m

Crystal Bay is a bay on Nusa Penida, off Bali, where sunfish rise to be cleaned from August to October, in 18 to 20°C water.

A blue shark with a long silver-gray body, pectoral fins spread, passes through the deep blue beneath a diver in a black wetsuit who is photographing it

AzoresPelagic

Condor Bank

Pico and Faial

5 to 15 mExperiencedFrom July to September

BoatCurrent: variableVisibility 20 to 30 m, often more

Condor Bank is a seamount 17 km off Faial whose summit stays 185 m down.

Close-up of an anemone with green, purple-tipped tentacles, nestled in the orange-red folds of its column, approached from the right by a pink anemonefish with a white stripe

ThailandPelagic

Chumphon Pinnacle

Gulf of Thailand: Koh Tao

14 to 36 mOpen WaterFrom March to September

BoatCurrent: moderateVisibility 20 to 30 m in season, 5 to 10 m in November and December

Chumphon Pinnacle is a granite pinnacle 10 kilometers northwest of Koh Tao, with its top at 14 meters covered in anemones.

A huge school of fish in silhouette, seen from below against the sunlight sparkling under the surface, in deep blue water.

IndonesiaPelagic

Castle Rock

Komodo

4 to 30 mExperiencedFrom April to October

BoatCurrent: strongVisibility 15 to 30 m

Castle Rock is a seamount in the north of Komodo National Park, rising from beyond 60 m to 4 m below the surface.

Big Brother from the sea: a flat, pale islet topped by its lighthouse, with a white liveaboard moored in front

EgyptPelagic

Brothers Islands

Southern Red Sea, Egypt

10 to 40 mExperiencedFrom April to November

LiveaboardCurrent: strongVisibility 25 to 40 m

The Brothers are twin islets about sixty kilometers off El Quseir, sitting on walls that drop into several hundred meters of water.

A reef manta ray seen from below, very close, its white belly spotted with black and its cephalic fins unrolled, surrounded by fish in the blue

FrancePass

Boulari Pass (New Caledonia)

New Caledonia

13 to 18 mAdvancedFrom April to November

BoatCurrent: strongVisibility 30 to 40 m in the cool season, from April to September

Boulari Pass cuts through the barrier reef between Grand Récif Aboré and Kué Reef, south of Amédée Lighthouse, about forty minutes from Nouméa.

A gray manta ray gliding to the left over a reef of leather corals, surrounded by damselfish in the foreground, in blue-gray water.

IndonesiaPelagic

Blue Magic

Raja Ampat

7 to 30 mAdvancedFrom October to April

BoatCurrent: strongVisibility 15 to 30 m

Blue Magic is a pinnacle in the middle of the Dampier Strait, in Raja Ampat, rising from 30 m to within 7 m of the surface.