Diving locations

Most bodies of water can and are used for recreational diving including:

seas and oceans - consist of salt water and a huge variety of flora and fauna. Among the favourites are:
- Atlantic Ocean - temperate diving
- Caribbean Sea - coral reefs and wide variety marine fauna
- Indian Ocean - coral reefs and wide variety marine fauna
- Mediterranean Sea
- Pacific Ocean - huge number of islands with coral reefs and wide variety marine fauna
- Red Sea - one of the best tropical marine life diving areas
lakes - small lakes are often used for diver training. Large lakes have many features of seas including wrecks and a variety of marine life.
caves - these are more adventurous and dangerous than normal diving. See cave diving.
rivers - are often shallow, murky and with strong currents
quarries - abandoned rock quarries are popular in inland areas for diver training as well as recreational diving. Because they are not "wild" and usually privately owned, quarries often contain objects intentionally placed for divers to explore, such as sunken boats, automobiles, aircraft, and even structures like grain silos and gravel chutes.

The following list of popular or interesting dive sites is shown by region, country and place.

Contents

1 Africa

Africa

Cayman Islands
Cuba
Martinique
Mexico
- Cozumel 20.5° N 86.9° W
Tobago
United States
- Great Lakes - Ship wrecks
- Pacific Northwest - The Puget Sound area has a huge amount of underwater life; it was reportedly one of the best places to dive by Jacques Cousteau

Australia
- Byron Bay - Great mix of tropical and temperate marine life.
- Coral sea - Better than Great Barrier Reef
- Great Barrier Reef
- Ningaloo Reef - Whale shark early in the year.
Fiji
India
- Andaman Islands - many large fish due to isolated islands with little commercial fishing
Indonesia - coral reefs and wide variety of marine fauna
- Alor
- Ambon
- Bali
- Flores
- Sangalakki
- Wakatobi
Japan
- Okinawa
Malaysia
- Layang-Layang - Hammer head sharks
- Sipadan Island - remote drop off, pelagics and nice coral reef fish
- Tioman Island - average reef diving
Maldives - many small islands with tidal currents and great marine life
Papua New Guinea - Untouched reefs, everything from muck to pelagics.
Philippines
- Busuanga Island or Coron - site of WWII Japanese wrecks from operation to retake Philippines
Solomon Islands
- Guadalcanal - site of American and Japanese wrecks
Thailand
- Pattaya
- Phuket - Simmilan islands, Richelieu rock, good reef diving.

Cocos Island - Spectacular diving, pelagics, hammer head sharks.
French Polynesia
Galapagos Islands - Spectacular diving, pelagics, hammer head sharks.
Micronesia
- Palau - Blue corner, famous for Gray reef sharks
- Truk Lagoon - site WWII Japanese wrecks of Operation Hailstone
- Yap - Famous for Manta rays
New Zealand
- Bay of Islands
- Cavalli Islands
- Great Barrier Island
- Poor Knights Islands - great sub-tropical marine life

Britain
- English Channel - extremely busy international water way with hundreds of wrecks
- Scapa Flow - site the scuttling of the German Kaiserliche Marine High Seas Fleet of World War I
Cyprus
France
- D-Day beaches - site of British and American WWII wrecks
Greece
- Aegean Sea
Ireland
- Skellig Islands - clear water and great variety of marine fauna
Italy
Norway
Portugal
- Madeira
Spain
- Canary Islands
Turkey
- Aegean Sea

Arctic ocean
Antarctica
- Little dived for recreational reasons. Mainly dived by scientific research organisations such as the British Antarctic Survey.