Diving in india

[paulderry]

Nikk - I am going to Agatti Island in Lakshadweep mid-January, and would love to hear your experiences and advice.

Some other great links are:

http://www.bharatguru.com/Newbuzz/Adventure/scuba.htm
http://www.diveglobal.com/explore_destinations/monthly_destination/oct2001.asp

Anyone got any tips for me? Please!

 

[Dr Devaskar]

i want to start SCUBa facility in Dwaraka,Gujarat,India.How do i go about doing it.Any one from Goa and Andaman /Nicobar can help me?-Dr D

 

[PeterMukiwa2]

I have done Lakshadweep twice, in 2000, 2001 out of Bagaram Island. Coral was very bleached. I would say the Maldives offer superior diving, particularly on a liveaboard cruise.

 

[vkalia]

With the Maldives, it depends on where you go. I went there on a liveaboard in April 2003, and I wasnt that impressed, either by the coral or the fish variety. Yeah, we saw lots of black-tip reef sharks and has consistently good visibility, but in terms of variety, the Andamans smoked it.

I've heard lots of good things about Lakshadweep as well - specifically, lots of turtles there. But we've had 4-5 sets of people diving with us who've also dived Lakshadweep, and they left raving about the diving in the Andamans.

But then, I *am* biased

Lastly, I wouldnt rely on the government web pages for information on operators. Those pages are hopeless outdated and dont always reflect the latest reality on who's operating where.

Vandit

 

[csnake]

I just did some brilliant dives at Netrani Island in Karnataka in the first week of February. There are no local diveshops there, but there are diveshops in Goa that organise dive safari's to Netrani. I contacted DiveGoa, and they set up the dives for me. Their website is www.divegoa.com. The dive crew was very professional, and the rental gear was in very good shape.

Netrani was about a 4 hour drive from Goa, and the vis there was about 20 m on the four dives that I did there.. there were a huge variety of fish there, large groupers, snappers, triggerfish, Cobia, and Moray eels everywhere.. I totally enjoyed the dives. Nothing to beat diving in warm clear water!

I did a few dives at Goa as well, where the vis was much lower (about 5m) on an average, but there was a nice shipwreck to explore, with plenty of fish around, and there was a surprising amount of plate and whip coral around the island.

I also found that Andaman Scuba Club, the diveshop operating at Havelock Island is no longer in operation. There are a couple of other diveshops there though.

 

[Major]

India probably isn't a destination you'd choose if diving was your motive. I can't speak for Andaman etc but having just come from india viz / conditions / scenery are fairly limited. I dived in Goa with Goa diving. Nice bunch of people but their equip cleaning / maintenance was a little on the average side. The experience was all in good fun despite having to haul the boat up and down the beach before and after the dives was a bit rough. One thing i did notice though was their interpretaton of surface intervals. Call me over cautious but dives can be as safe as you want them to be

have a good one

The Major

 

[DontLieToMe]

I have just completed a ten day diving trip on a liveaboard in the Andaman Islands. With the exception of Barren Island, which had some interesting underwater topography, I found the diving to be unremarkable. No where we dived did we find anything but a sprinkling of hard corals. Invertebrate life was very limited. There was some good fish action at a couple of sites. We had sightings of Mantas several times but most of the time they were in and out - passing by. In general, we found the fish, eels, etc. to be very shy.

 

[vkalia]

Well, that is interesting and points out a problem with most liveaboards coming to the Andamans: typically, they dont have any idea on where to dive, other than Barren & Invisible Banks. Not surprising, as there are maybe 4-5 liveaboard visits a season here - if that. So in-depth knowledge of this area doesnt exactly exist yet.

A lot of them have Minerva Ledge on their itinerary, for example - I have been diving that reef for 5 years now, and for starters, it is HUGE and unless you know exactly where to go, it can be very dull.

A liveaboard trip to the Andamans, if visiting the right sites, would be truly mindblowing. Shame no one knows all those right sites. Hell, we've been operational for 4 years now and only now are we getting the "power sites" of our area (and there is still a lot more waiting to be found) - and we are just one island. No way a boat coming here once every 2 years knows where to go.

Major - no offense, but basing your comments about diving in India on Goa is a bit specious. Netrani, Lakshadweep and the Andamans all offer diving that is probably vastly superior to all Carribbean destinations, for example.

Vandit

 

[Bowmouth]

Well, that is interesting and points out a problem with most liveaboards coming to the Andamans: typically, they dont have any idea on where to dive, other than Barren & Invisible Banks. Not surprising, as there are maybe 4-5 liveaboard visits a season here - if that. So in-depth knowledge of this area doesnt exactly exist yet.

A lot of them have Minerva Ledge on their itinerary, for example - I have been diving that reef for 5 years now, and for starters, it is HUGE and unless you know exactly where to go, it can be very dull.

A liveaboard trip to the Andamans, if visiting the right sites, would be truly mindblowing. Shame no one knows all those right sites. Hell, we've been operational for 4 years now and only now are we getting the "power sites" of our area (and there is still a lot more waiting to be found) - and we are just one island. No way a boat coming here once every 2 years knows where to go.

Vandit

It would be much appreciated if you could let us know what "the right sites" are and how to get to those sites as well.
As I understand are local dive operators only diving the sites "close" to Havelock Island like South Button, Dixon's Pinnacle, Minerva Ledge, and The Wall. "Close" for most of those sites still means two hours travelling on a very small open wooden boat with roaring engine and absolutely no facilities.
I dived the following places in the Andaman Islands (Little Andaman, South Sentinel, The Sisters, Passage island, Fish Rock, Flat Rock (Invisible Bank), Minerva Ledge, Havelock, North and South Button, Barren island, Narcondam, Rosemund Shoal) and must say that the BEST diving was at Barren Island. Barren offered a nice combination of walls, black sand slopes, clear water and good marine life with at one spot even a very nice area with soft corals. Narcondam, Passage Island, The Sisters and Fish Rock had great fish life but no soft corals and only few critters. Minerva Ledge, North Button and Flat Rock had nice hard coral reefs and South Button and Rosemund Shoal offered some critters (mantis shrimps, small cuttle fish, ornate ghostpipe fish, wire coral shrimps, pipefish, spindle cowries, anemone fish).
I'm sure there are many more places that may offer good diving in the Andaman Islands but it's mainly professionally operated liveaboard vessels that can get safely out to those (far away) areas and explore. If a Port Blair or Havelock based dive operator would invest in a proper liveaboard vessel and do some exploration it may serve the whole (diving) tourism industry for the future.
During my time in the Andaman Islands it was VERY nice to see that there was NO commercial fishing going on, NO dynamite fishing, NO bottom trawling and that there was NO trash on the reefs.
If the local Indian Government keeps protecting their reefs in the Andamans as they've done in the past and if they would PROMOTE the diving as well (rather than making it very hard for divers and dive operators to dive/operate in the area) it can certainly become a very interesting dive destination.

 

[vkalia]

It would be much appreciated if you could let us know what "the right sites" are and how to get to those sites as well. As I understand are local dive operators only diving the sites "close" to Havelock Island like South Button, Dixon's Pinnacle, Minerva Ledge, and The Wall.

I dont claim to be an omniscient being who knows all the right sites across the entire Andamans. We have been diving in Havelock for 4 years now and still are yet to discover the full potential of the diving in/around Havelock. That is why I feel that a liveaboard coming here once every year or two and covering a *much* larger area is not very likely to know what the best spots are.

Even Minerva, for example - it is a huge reef. Large parts of that reef have a few small fish and some coral, and not much else. Specific parts of it have a much higher fish density.

If a Port Blair or Havelock based dive operator would invest in a proper liveaboard vessel and do some exploration it may serve the whole (diving) tourism industry for the future.

Yep, that is true. But there are a bunch of other issues which are holding things back liveaboards in the Andamans. Investing in a liveaboard only makes sense when there is a certain critical mass of tourism and a favorable regulatory climate. We are slowly moving in that direction.

You also have to realize that diving is in its infancy in the Andamans. Every years, progress is made - both in terms of new/better dive sites, and better amenities. This is the first year that diver volumes have reached a level that make economic sense.

During my time in the Andaman Islands it was VERY nice to see that there was NO commercial fishing going on, NO dynamite fishing, NO bottom trawling and that there was NO trash on the reefs.

In the last 5 years that I've been diving Havelock, I've seen the shark population being decimated.

If the local Indian Government keeps protecting their reefs in the Andamans as they've done in the past and if they would PROMOTE the diving as well (rather than making it very hard for divers and dive operators to dive/operate in the area) it can certainly become a very interesting dive destination.

Well, that is a whole different can of worms and I'm not gonna get into that.

I already think it is a very interesting destination right now - untouched, pristine and lacking in large-scale commercial developments. But I am obviously biased. It will slowly become a more conventional destination, with glitzy resorts and stuff.

Vandit