Diving and snorkelling recommendations
Diving and snorkelling immerses you into a floaty, contemplative world filled with mystery and colour – and often heaving with quirky marine life
Top 7 dive and snorkel destinations
1. Malaysia Lying off Borneo’s north-east coast is the tiny island of Pulau Sipadan. Its reef was not explored until the late 1970s, when both Jacques Cousteau and the WWF gave it glowing reports. Along with a reef teeming with life, green turtles nest on the island and hawksbill turtles are prolific.
2. Egypt The Red Sea is the world’s most northern tropical sea and while its coast is made up of seven nations, most divers flip their fins towards Egypt. With short flights from Europe, a million or more divers congregate in Eqypt’s coastal resorts every year.
But legions of divers are no match for a teeming marine population – pop your head underwater and mingle with crustaceans, cephalopods, molluscs, schools of reef and pelagic fish. Throw in sharks and dolphins plus anthias, butterfly fish, rays and morays and all you are missing is a swim with Moby Dick. Perennial divers’ favourites include Sharm El Sheikh for reefs like Ras Mohammed and wrecks like the Thistlegorm.
3. Great Barrier Reef Many divers have become blasé about the barrier, but when someone tells you they’ve been disappointed here, ask just how many of its one million square kilometres they’ve explored. With that much coral to snorkel, pretty much all bases are covered. There’s marvellous shore-snorkelling from Lady Elliot Island, its waters teeming with manta rays, turtles and leopard sharks. Cruise among the white-sand beaches of the Whitsunday Islands on a yacht, slipping off the side to spot huge maori wrasse and the peculiar tasselled wobbegong (it’s a shark, but it looks more like a sofa). Or head for the remote outer reef for close encounters with minke whales.
4. Malta and Gozo; Estartit Closer to home are Malta and Gozo in the central Mediterranean and the Medas Islands off northern Spain. The Maltese islands are home to clear, clean water, an abundance of marine life and some super wrecks. The Medas Islands near Estartit in Spain have been a nature reserve since the early 1980s and while much of the Mediterranean fish stocks have been seriously depleted, these islands are filled with huge grouper and many other types of fish and invertebrates. Best from May-October.
5. Bahamas The Bahamas, popular for its close proximity to the US, is regarded as the ‘Shark Diving Capital of the World’ and has an amazing reputation for getting divers frighteningly close to sharks in a number of different scenarios (including hand feeding) with a minimum of fuss and in as controlled a situation as you can be with wild creatures. Year-round diving.
6. Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands are home to ‘The best ten foot dive in the world'. Referring to an unbelievable hands-on experience with dozens of large stingrays. 250 stingrays swoop in and envelop you in their ‘wings’ in search of a free meal. This is a curious mix of nature and enterprise and no-one is certain which has trained what. Year-round diving.
7. Scotland Probably better suited to more experienced divers, Scotland has an impressive repertoire of shipwrecks – in Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, you can find the most wrecks in European waters. The Eyemouth and St Abbs Head area on the Scottish east coast is also home to the only marine reserve in Scotland and the rocky shores are a haven for interesting marine life.
Surprisingly, there are probably more divers trained in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK. The western sea lochs are calm and sheltered and while the water is not warm, even at the height of the summer, diving can be enjoyed all year round.