Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Diving is a small operation run from the harbour at Hanga Roa, the island's only town. The boats are open and short-ranged, the runs are measured in minutes, and the usual pattern is two dives in the morning before the wind builds, leaving the afternoon for the archaeology most visitors came for. Site choice is dictated by swell rather than by tide or plan: with no barrier reef and no lagoon to shelter behind, crews read the exposed coast each morning and work whichever side is lying down that day.

What you dive is bare volcanic rock. The bottom is dark, low and scoured in places, cut into ledges, fissures and swim-throughs elsewhere, and hard coral appears as low crusts and scattered heads rather than thickets — a short list of species rather than a reef community. Sites vary mainly by exposure: the further from the shelter of the bays, the more oceanic the water feels, the more relief there is to swim through, and the more the day's plan depends on the swell.

The sensation people remember is scale. With very little suspended in the water, walls and boats resolve at distances that feel wrong, and divers commonly misjudge how far off something is and how deep they have gone. The other stop visitors ask about is a moai on the seabed near town: it is a replica, reportedly sunk for a film or documentary shoot rather than an archaeological find, and operators say so up front. Expect a short list of sites — the diving adds to a trip built around the island rather than filling one.