Diving in the Caribbean

Descend into the Great Blue Hole, then hunt whale sharks at a spring snapper spawn

Great hammerhead sharks patrol sandy shallows within sight of shore each winter

Drive-up shore diving on a coral slope, unlimited air fills, no boat required

One of the few reliable places on earth to dive with oceanic whitetips

A Soviet frigate lies broken in two between 15 and 30 m

Drift along sponge-covered walls with 20–40 m visibility on the sheltered leeward coast

Shore-dive a mushroom-shaped coral garden, then a harbor-mouth cargo wreck

Dive through a field of warm volcanic bubbles at Champagne Reef, named for the effect

Descend into Angelfish Blue Hole, a vertical shaft opening onto a coral-rimmed cavern

Hand-feed wild stingrays in chest-deep water, then drop over a sheer wall the same day

An underwater sculpture garden of coral-encrusted human figures in shallow water

A bronze Cousteau sits at 12 m in the reserve he made famous

Hundreds of whale sharks feed shoulder to shoulder in open blue water

Snorkel with American crocodiles, then dive reefs thick with unwary reef sharks

A wall that starts at 6 meters and vanishes into blue, minutes from an undeveloped shore

A 350-cay national park atoll with walls and almost no other divers

Forests of black coral in a bay that is flat calm nearly every day

Two dozen reef sharks circle a baited arena in 12 m of water

The western hemisphere's third-largest barrier reef, 700 km from anywhere

A hydrogen-sulphide cloud hangs at 30 m inside Cenote Angelita

An 1867 mail steamer split between 9 m and 27 m off Salt Island

Walk in from a beach resort and be on a coral wall within a five-minute swim

Pinnacles rising from deep water, current-fed and thick with black coral and sponges

Cold upwelling makes Colombia's Caribbean coast unexpectedly productive

Swim off a beach onto a wall that drops past three thousand metres

Swim over the ballast blocks of a drowned eighteenth-century port

Soft-coral walls beneath the Pitons, with a beach entry straight onto the reef

Kneel on open sand in 6 meters of water while tiger sharks cruise past at arm's length

A wall off Grand Turk where migrating humpback whales pass within earshot each winter

Budget certifications on an island with realistic year-round whale shark odds