The SS Yongala is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest wreck dives. This passenger steamer sank in a cyclone in 1911 and now rests at 14–30 m, completely encrusted with corals and teeming with giant grouper, bull sharks, sea snakes, and manta rays. Strong currents keep the site nutrient-rich and visibility high, but they also demand experience.
Blue Magic (officially Fiabacet reef) is Raja Ampat's premier site for large pelagics — wobbegong sharks, oceanic mantas, hammerheads, and giant trevally all appear with regularity. The reef wall drops from 12 m to the open abyss, and experienced divers can drift along it watching for hammerheads hunting in the blue below. The site demands strong current experience and a confident hover in open water.
Christmas Point on Similan Island No. 7 is famous for a sloping coral garden that cascades from the surface to 30 m, planted with enormous table corals and staghorn formations. The site is named for a distinctive Christmas-tree-shaped rock that marks the entry point. Leopard sharks rest on sandy patches between boulders, and manta rays visit seasonally during the November to April diving season.
Dori seamount off São Miguel island is a hard-coral-encrusted pinnacle famous among Azorean dive guides as the best shark dive in the archipelago away from the famous outer banks. Common blue sharks circle inquisitively at 20–40 m while sperm whale pods occasionally pass deeper below, and the abundant macro life on the seamount top includes large nudibranchs and colourful sea slugs rare elsewhere in the North Atlantic. Best dived from a RIB in calm summer conditions.
Formigas (Ants) is a tiny, remote islet east of Santa Maria in the Azores surrounded by a broad rocky bank rising from 300 m to just 17 m below the surface. Between April and October the bank is reliably visited by whale sharks attracted by the summer plankton blooms, alongside large schools of amberjack, barracuda, and hammerheads. The Azorean sea temperature at 20–23°C and Atlantic clarity combine to make this one of Europe's finest open-ocean dive experiences.
The German Channel is an artificial passage dredged by German phosphate miners in the early 1900s, now famous as one of Palau's most reliable manta ray cleaning stations. Reef mantas glide to the cleaning bommie at 20–24 m while divers rest on the sand and observe from below, and the channel walls on either side host dense gorgonian gardens and resident bumphead parrotfish schools. The site also has excellent macro life including various nudibranch species.
The Garden Eel Cove night manta dive off Kailua-Kona is one of the most magical dives in the world — divers kneel in the shallow sandy bowl at 12 m shining lights upward to attract zooplankton, and resident reef mantas perform loop after loop over the divers' heads in the plankton-rich water. Up to 20 mantas have been counted in a single dive, and because these individuals are photographically identified and non-migratory, encounters are nearly guaranteed most nights of the year.
Manta Alley at the southern tip of Komodo Island is a channel where resident reef mantas and occasional oceanic mantas glide along the bottom in 12–25 m of water, feeding on plankton swept in by tidal currents. The site has an unhurried, intimate feel compared to more exposed Komodo sites, and the relatively sheltered position means dives can often proceed when other sites are too rough. Leopard sharks rest in the sandy gullies between coral heads.
Located on the southwest coast of Nusa Penida, Manta Point is a shallow cleaning station and feeding area where reef mantas congregate, sometimes in groups of 20 or more. The site is relatively exposed to south-swell and moderate currents so it needs to be dived on the right conditions, but when it is calm the manta encounters at 5–16 m are supremely close-up and extended. Snorkellers and divers share the water here, so awareness is important.
Located on the outer reef of South Malé Atoll, this channel is a renowned manta ray cleaning station where reef mantas gather in impressive numbers to have parasites removed by resident cleaner wrasse. Divers kneel on a sandy ledge at around 12 m and watch mantas pirouette overhead repeatedly, sometimes for 45 minutes. The site is best visited between November and April when the northeast monsoon brings plankton-rich water.
Manta Sandy is a broad sandy plateau near Arborek village in Raja Ampat where oceanic manta rays gather at a cleaning station most mornings. The mantas hover motionless above the sand in just 8–15 m of water, allowing extended, unhurried observation and photography. The surrounding seagrass beds are home to nesting sea turtles and walking epaulette sharks.
Princess Alice Bank is a mid-Atlantic seamount rising from 2000 m to within 40 m of the surface near Faial in the Azores, considered one of the world's elite big-animal dive sites. Seasonal aggregations of blue sharks, mako sharks, hammerhead sharks, and huge schools of Atlantic amberjack gather above the summit, with blue marlin and whale shark encounters adding to the spectacle in summer. The site is current-swept and remote, demanding open-water confidence and liveaboard access.
Tubbataha Reef is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the middle of the Sulu Sea, reachable only by liveaboard from Puerto Princesa, Palawan. The north atoll wall drops precipitously from the surface to over 100 m and is patrolled by hammerhead sharks, grey reef sharks, and Napoleon wrasse in extraordinary numbers. Conditions demand experience — current, depth, and open-ocean exposure combine on many of the park's best sites.