Diving in the Coral Triangle

Strong straits sweep past pristine coral cover between remote volcanic islands.

The endemic psychedelic frogfish lives on Ambon's harbour slopes

A limestone wall the length of the coast, dived by almost nobody

Rubble slopes near Manila hold an outsized range of nudibranchs and seahorses.

The world's second-largest contiguous coral reef, closed to fishing

A 2016 survey found the world's highest average reef fish count per site here.

Seamounts off a still-active volcano occasionally draw hammerheads into open water.

Soft coral grows so thick on Sahaung's pinnacles the rock disappears

A minesweeper, a cement carrier and two ships nobody can firmly identify

Sheer walls drop from the surface, patrolled by turtles and napoleon wrasse.

Whale sharks feed under fishing platforms for one of diving's most reliable encounters.

WWII Japanese wrecks sit largely intact in a limestone-karst bay.

A community-run sanctuary since the 1980s now teems with turtles and coral.

Turtles nest on Derawan's beaches; mantas cycle through Sangalaki's cleaning station.

Community-run whale shark tourism, and mantas queueing in Ticao Pass

Eighty human figures stand in a ring on the sand off Gili Meno

Wade off a Honiara roadside onto a Japanese transport from 1942

A single bay holds roughly half the world's recorded coral species.

Cold upwellings feed current-swept pinnacles thick with sharks and schooling trevally.

Scalloped hammerheads school along a wall that drops 2,000 m

Slow scans over black sand reveal mimic octopus and hairy frogfish.

Jetty pilings and sand slopes turn up ghost pipefish and mandarinfish at dusk.

Pelagic thresher sharks rise from the deep to a pre-dawn cleaning station.

Step off a jetty into the world's largest lagoon, or cross to open ocean

Bali's best walls, sheltered enough to dive in almost any weather

Sheltered volcanic-sand bays where modern muck diving first took hold.

Millions of sardines form a shifting baitball reachable straight from shore.

Mola mola surface from the deep to cleaning stations each dry season.

A permanent tornado of jacks and barracuda on a wall from 6 m

A narrow strait holds one of the highest recorded densities of shore fish on Earth.

Manta rays hold at cleaning stations in the world's most biodiverse reef system.

New species are described from these slopes with unusual regularity

Hot gas vents stream through the reef from an active submarine volcano

A tornado of barracuda spirals over a wall dropping straight from the beach.

Shore-accessible walls from 5 m into blue, dived one boat at a time

WWII aircraft wrecks rest near lightly dived, pristine barrier reefs.

Whale sharks in the shallows and a sanctuary wall almost nobody dives

The world's third-largest atoll, and a wall running the length of Selayar

A B-24 Liberator at 22 m and a lake full of stingless jellyfish

Whale sharks hang under fishing platforms year-round in Papuan soft coral

Sheer mid-ocean walls hold schooling hammerheads and grey reef sharks.

Muck diving in drowned volcanic valleys with rainforest on the walls

The USAT Liberty wreck lies coral-encrusted just off a black-sand beach.

A community-protected house reef drops straight off the jetty into dense coral.