Rarotonga & Aitutaki

Rarotonga is small and the reef is close in, so there is almost no travel time in the diving. Boats launch from Avatiu on the north coast or straight off the west-coast beaches, clear the passage and are on a site within minutes, which makes the standard two-dive morning a genuinely relaxed one — back on land by lunch with the rest of the day free. Sites are picked by wind, the fleet working whichever coast is in the lee as the trades swing. Shore diving exists but is limited: the reef flat is shallow and the surf breaks along its edge.

Underwater it is a steep volcanic island with a thin fringing reef stuck to the side of it. The lagoon is narrow around most of the island — Muri, on the south-east, is the exception — so the drop-off starts close in and the terrain runs to canyons, arches, sand chutes and old lava tubes cut into the slope. The reef passages drain the flat and give a gentle outbound drift rather than anything demanding. Aitutaki works the other way round: a very large shallow lagoon, with the diving out on the outer face where it falls away.

The reef is species-poor next to the western Pacific — fewer corals, fewer of the big Indo-Pacific headliners — so this is scenery diving, read in shape and light rather than in colour. That suits divers who are new or coming back after a break, and anyone fitting dives around a family holiday. May to October is the settled core, with April and November usually holding either side of it; December to March brings rain, swell and the region's cyclone season, and costs operators days rather than shutting the diving down. Leave a clear day between the last dive and the flight home.