Last Updated on September 2, 2024 by Steve Weinman
Mafia offer
Divers are being offered a saving of £200 a head per week at a resort on Mafia, a Tanzanian island well-known for its diving opportunities. Pole Pole Lodge is a “boutique” property with 10 en suite bungalows raised on stilts above the beach, along with a dining bar and spa.
Diving takes place from sister-property Mafia Island Lodge, a PADI 5* dive-centre offering daily boat-diving from traditional dhows, shore-diving and a range of courses.
The dhow-diving is said to extend from sheltered and shallow Chole Bay with its coral reefs out to the Dindini and Juani walls with their cruising sharks and turtles.
The special-offer price of £2,275pp, reduced from £2,474, includes international and domestic flights, seven nights’ B&B, airport transfers, 10 boat-dives, local taxes and a free daily excursion. It is valid throughout September and from 16 November to 19 December this year, and is available through Dive Worldwide.
One island-one resort in Zanzibar
Not too far away in the Indian Ocean and also in Tanzania, The Cocoon Collection recently opened a “one island-one resort” property billed as “the ultimate Zanzibar luxury”.
Bawe Island is a 15-minute speedboat ride out from Stonetown (or if in the mood you could always take the helicopter) and consists of 70 villas, each with private pool and butler service.
There are no fewer than five restaurants to cater for the “gourmet philosophy” and a spa but Bawe also boasts “the most complete and full equipped diving and watersport in all Zanzibar”, with the scuba operations run by its Dive Mission SSI centre.
“Bawe’s Reef is considered one of the most breathtaking in Zanzibar, featuring a unique dive-spot: its waters are home to an extraordinary range of tropical fish and marine life, easily explored even for beginner-level divers,” says the centre, without giving too much away on what divers might expect.
Room rates in a Sunrise Villa for guests on half-board start from US $1,700 a night (two sharing) – details from The Cocoon Collection.
Book ahead for Komodo mantas
Manta Expeditions is looking ahead to 22 July, 2026 and a 10-night liveaboard journey to Komodo National Park in Indonesia, when it plans to dive at sites including renowned manta-cleaning stations such as Karang Makassar and Manta Alley, where rays often aggregate in large numbers to socialise and mate.
The company liaises with UK charity the Manta Trust to run trips with a scientific purpose, and the park has one of the largest year-round populations of reef manta rays in the world, including the black morph variety. The scientists will be collecting photo-ID images and guests are encouraged to participate in seeking out new mantas and naming them.
Other sites such as Batu Bolong, Crystal Rock and Shotgun are expected to offer diver attractions such as large schools of trevally, whitetip reef sharks and barracuda and coral gardens, with abundant critters such as frogfish, ghost pipefish, mimic octopus and nudibranchs at the likes of Pink Beach, Wainilu and Tiga Dara.
The boat is the Indo Master which is big at 47m and accommodates up to 18 guests in nine air-conditioned, en suite cabins.
While the itinerary will revolve around manta encounters, Komodo dragons are bound to get a look in on the included eponymous island tour.
Prices start from US $5,150pp (about £3,925) for a cabin (two sharing) with airport or hotel transfers, up to four dives a day and the Komodo tour. Visit Manta Expeditions or email Manta Trust guide Niv Froman at info@mantaexpeditions.com.
Maldives’ smallest?
If “boutique” is another way of saying “on the smaller side”, Dive Worldwide reckons Boutique Beach could weigh in as the Maldives’ smallest resort. The tour operator describes it as perfectly located for appreciating the diving opportunities afforded by South Ari Atoll, with its appeal now further enhanced by 30% savings available.
The six-room resort is on the island of Dhigurah on the south-east of the atoll and it was designed and built for divers by divers, it says. There is a restaurant and lounge but note that this is a ‘dry’ resort (no alcohol).
From the dive-centre the clear-headed guests can do up to three dives a day with more than 50 sites from which to choose, including nearby Kuda Rah Thila and, requiring a full-day safari, Manta Point.
Marine life ranges from nudibranchs through schools of snapper to grey reef sharks and giant trevally, with whale sharks “ever-present” in the atoll.
If you travel before 31 October and book more than seven days ahead with Dive Worldwide, you can save that 30% on all-inclusive accommodation. Seven nights in a Deluxe room is thereby reduced to £2,495, including flights from the UK, speedboat transfers and up to two dives a day.
For fish aficionados
The rare blue-striped pygmy goby is a newly identified fish that seems to be peculiar to the Alphonse group of Seychelles outer islands. It was found in St François Atoll.
Seychelles is home to 880 fish species and this one was originally thought to be another goby, Trimma dalerocheila, until two specimens of the differently coloured and marked Trimma cavicapum had been found and examined.
Local dive operation Blue Safari Seychelles reckons the ‘new’ goby might be found only on Alphonse and, further south, Astove, where one was recently photographed. Diving visitors are invited to “experience the extraordinary biodiversity and be among the first to witness the new species of pygmy goby in its natural habitat”.
According to the centre the atoll’s warm, nutrient-rich waters mean that Alphonse offers some of the best diving in the Indian Ocean.
The island has a PADI 5* dive-centre with 24 sites within a half-hour’s boat-drive, and these are said to teem with exotic and colourful fish as well as turtles, Napoleon wrasse and manta rays. Deep drop-offs and shallow plateaus off St François are also visited.
Blue Safari Seychelles says it plays an active role in ocean research and conservation in this part of the world. Divers are invited to join in on Alphonse with a seven-night diving package costing from US $9,710pp (around £7,350) for a shared bungalow, all meals, domestic flights and a 10-dive package.
Orca and Breakers at Somabay
For perhaps more manageable holiday prices, with reliable weather and flights from the UK of no more than five hours, a reliable bet is the Red Sea five-property resort Somabay near Hurghada.
It has a house reef accessible from its 420m jetty as well as ready access to some 20 boat-dive sites such as the Salem Express wreck and spectacular Tubya Arbaa coral columns, all through Orca Dive Club.
The house reefs feature coral gardens, turtles, barracudas, rays and occasionally Wally the whale shark, and Orca can handle everything from discovery dives to rebreather training.
The five hotels, set on an isolated 1,000-hectare peninsula, cover a wide range of prices and styles, though many scuba divers opt for the laidback property closest to Orca, Breakers Diving & Surfing Lodge, which was completely renovated last year.
Rates for a double room with sea-view start at £73pp per night, and you pay from £41 for a day’s house-reef diving and can double that for a day’s boat-diving.
Also on Divernet: BOOKING NOW: 8 DIVE-HOLIDAY IDEAS, BOOKING NOW: 6 WILDLIFE DIVE-TRIP IDEAS, BOOKING NOW: ATLANTIS TEMPTS FAMILY DIVERS, DIVE LIKE A PRO: PACKING GEAR FOR A DIVE-TRIP
