Sri Lanka Diving

[Nishan]

The Lonely Planet info is a bit inaccurate.

Great Basses:
Only via special expedition during a short window of calm weather in Mar/Apr. Surface conditions can be rough but mostly shallow diving. Interesting limestone formations, good fish life and consistently good visibility. Large dogtooth tuna and giant trevally are common but never seen a shark in 20+ dives there. Not much left of the wrecks other than a few bits of metal. Worth a visit but only accessible in Mar/Apr when a few dive shops organise trips.

Bar Reef:
Actually mostly shallow, beginner diving. Good coral and decent fish life, chance of the odd reef shark.

Pigeon Island:
The good stuff can be seen snorkelling as its mostly 3-8m depths. Nice coral but not much fish. Reef sharks are common. Season is from April to October. December not a good time to visit and all dive shops will have closed.

Unawatuna:
The dive shops usually visit only 2 wrecks, the Rangoon and the Orestus (Tango wreck). Both are good dives although not the best wreck dives in Sri Lanka. Good fish life on the wrecks but not so much on the reefs. The Orestus has a large resident school of trevally. There is no wreck that has been intentionally sunk for diving.

Batticaloa:
Again season from April to October. hermes is a technical dive at 54m. Some shallow wrecks and reefs as well and overall nice diving.

You will have to dive on west and/or south coast in December and January. If you are going to the south anyway suggest Hikkaduwa or Unawatuna. Bar Reef is in Kalpitiya, about 3 hrs north of the airport. Colombo itself is not much of a tourist destination tbh but if you are in the city even a couple of days you could dive some nice wrecks.

 

[glocklt4]

Thank you for the good info here, Nishan. Wife and I are heading to Sri Lanka in the middle of October because we're going after a visit to NW India. Best time of year to visit Delhi for cooler weather and less rains, but apparently not the best for SL at all.

We are 100+ dive AOW divers and were looking forward to getting some dives in during a 5ish day stop in SL, but it sounds like it really is not that advisable to even try. October seems like a really variable month as far as SW or N/E coasts to even attempt diving. As much as we love to dive, 3-5m visibility with high currents and rough waters is not our favorite. Been there and done that enough times already. It sounds like our days in SL would be better utilized with other activities.

What are your thoughts for this time of year diving and other activities?

Thanks!

 

[Nishan]

Yeah its not a good time for diving. Very hit and miss and while you could have some great diving the chances of bad weather and low viz are high. Most dive shops are also moving from the east to the west and use this time for repairs so not all will be operating. Better chance the last week or so in October. Was 10-15m viz this year.

You will have some rain but usually its in the afternoon and evening so plan your land based activities accordingly. Saying that this October had less rain and its raining hard now in December. The patterns seem even more unpredictable these days. But unless you have absolute rotten luck you should be ok. Just not a great time to go trekking as the trails can get bad. Not a busy month for tourist arrivals so less crowds and usually good rates.