The Islands
This is truly a world class dive site, with wall to wall corals, channels to swim through, marine life to die for and generally shallow water, making for lengthy bottom times to maximize the pleasure of this dive. The dive consists mainly of 3 pools surrounded by walls of coral. Generally the dive is spent travelling through the pools and cutting through to the outside edge of the reef. There is no one way of diving The Islands. You can do the site several times and still explore different areas of it. The following description of the dive site is just one way of doing it. It’s the more dived version of the Islands.
Tricky Entry
The entry used to be tricky, but has been made easier with strings of surface marker buoys leading from the beach to the point of entry into the first pool. Staying within these buoys will ensure you enter the water in the correct place and keeps you away from hiding sea urchins in the entry area. Entry and exit from the first pool will depend entirely what the tide is doing. If it’s low tide you can walk right up to the point of entry, jump into the pool and then put your fins on. If it’s high tide you can put your fins on and then swim into the pool before descending. Regardless of the tide though, be very careful of holes at the entry point. If you fall into these holes you can damage or break a leg!
As you descend you’ll notice the sandy bottom below you at around 6 metres. If it’s a windy day, the sand in the first pool gets stirred up and reduces visibility, but shouldn’t cause any major problems. Follow the reef with the wall on your right. As you leave the first pool, you’ll find yourself swimming over some coral and into the second pool. This is a very small in relation to the first and third. Entering pool three, the largest of them, follow the reef keeping it on your right. Follow the circumference of the pool to around ¾ of the way along. On your right you’ll notice a small channel leading away from the pool. Swim up and over into this channel. The channel is covered in various amazing corals. Some of the channels have been caused by an earthquake many years ago.
The large heads of coral have fallen over like a row of dominos and subsequently formed some swim throughs and channels. In order to preserve the coral its best to enter the swim throughs and channels in single file. Swimming side to side with your buddy will result in broken coral!
School of Barracuda
From pool three follow this swim through which opens out a bit and bends to the left. Keep going and within a few minutes the channel opens up onto the back end of the reef. Its generally in this area where you’ll find the large school of Barracuda, known famously on this dive, swimming around staying close to each other for protection against predators like Jacks and Tuna. It’s wonderful to spend some time checking these amazing fish out! The whole school moves in unison like a big silver streak. The Barracuda can be found either swimming around on the reef itself or on the sandy area on the back of the reef. This sandy area is at around 15 metres. The school tends to lie close to the sand and moves slowly almost as if they’re taking a nap. The Barracuda can at times be quite docile and you can get close up and personal to them. This makes for great photo opportunities! Afterwards you can then head south exploring the rest of the reef. Because of the density of coral on this site, you find a just as dense variety of marine life on the Islands. Look out for schools of Snapper, Sweetlips, Twobar Seabream, Angelfish and various reef fish like Butterflyfish and Clownfish. Look out for octopus too, they’ve been spotted swimming across the sandy bottom as well as camouflaging themselves on the reef.
To head back to the pools, cut back across the reef through the channels. Using your compass to find the direction of travel back to the pools will definitely help!
Exit Points
Once you’re back in pool 3, follow your way back to the first pool where you entered. At around 3 metres you’ll find a small rocky cave. If you enter this cave, one at a time, you can swim through the natural tunnel which runs under the coral table. 30 seconds or so later you’ll exit through a hole where you can remove your fins and walk out back onto the beach.
It’s a great idea to do this site more than once on your trip. As mentioned there is a lot more to explore and see!
