Rodrigues

Everything is done from boats and the tide runs the day. The lagoon is broad and shallow, so departures are timed both to carry enough water over the reef flat and to reach the channels while the flow is going the right way; a morning can start early or late depending on the tide rather than on what suits the schedule. Centres sit at opposite ends of the island, around Port Mathurin in the north and Mourouk in the south-east, and each tends to work its own end rather than crossing over.

The ground outside the barrier is undemanding and well lit: hard coral over sand, cut with gullies and swim-throughs shallow enough that light is never the problem. The channels are a different sport. You drop into moving water, run the cut and hold on a corner while the flow stacks fish in front of you, and whether that is an easy morning or a serious one is set by the tide rather than by the site. Current is moderate as a baseline and the passes can run well beyond it, so the tide table does most of the planning.

The calmest, most reliable windows are May to July and October to November. August blows hard enough to cost dives without writing the month off, and the kitesurfers come for exactly that wind; January to March carries cyclone risk and the least settled sea. The site list is compact and the island is quiet, with dinner as the evening entertainment. It suits divers who want channel diving without a dive scene around it, and who are happy for the topside half of the trip to be walking, birds and empty coastline.