Flying Fish Cove – the world’s best shore dive?

The diving on Christmas Island is incredibly varied – from the shallow coral gardens of Flying Fish Cove, the unfathomable depths of Perpendicular Wall to caves such as Thundercliff. (Photo above by David Pittock)

We asked Diveplanit’s Simon Mallender to describe a few of his favourites for us., kicking off with everyone’s favourite shorey, Flying Fish Cove.

This Christmas Island shore dive rates as my best shore dive in the Indian Ocean. Walk straight down the boat ramp into the warm, clear Indian Ocean and within seconds you’re swimming through pristine coral gardens. Here’s how the dive goes…

Follow the line of the ramp straight out until you hit the drop off. Turn towards your left and work your way down the drop off to about 18 meters just following the slope along.

After about 20 minutes come back up the 9m on the slope, turn sharp left towards the shore line, and then work your way back along the shallows at 9 m and navigate back up the ramp via the two chains which are laid out like airport landing lights to guide you back in! (Photo above by David Pittock)

A very easy dive – you really can’t go wrong and you’ll see more fish and coral types in that one dive than you’d see in a week at other places. Here’s a small sample of what we saw on a single dive.

Some footage is from other sites, but 90% of all the species will be found in Flying Fish Cove.