Dubbed in by ichthyologists from the Smithsonian Institute, and other notable scientific institutions as the "last untouched reef in the world", Christmas Island promises great diving and delivers. In July of 2005, scientists from Honolulu's Bishop Museum (led by renowned ichthyologists Richard Pile and John Earle) teamed up with Christmas Island Diver's Association for 2 weeks in documenting new reef fish species and assessing the atoll's reef life sustainability. The results were unanimous---Christmas Island is one of the last places on Earth that has the amount and variety of fish that you can find here. In fact, one of the most recent discoveries was by a 27 year old tourist from the U.S. diving with Christmas Island Diver's Association in March of 2005, when he happened to snap a picture of a small blue and yellow damsel-like fish on one of his dives. 3 months later the fish was named the Day Fish in honor of its new discoverer, David Day!
A typical day of diving in Christmas Island is a full itinerary packed with multiple dive sites and surface intervals on remote white sand beaches. |
Christmas
Island's diving is best described as an underwater diamond where
the sea life is a reminder of the reefs our great grandfathers
once told stories about... 
From
the moment you cast off from the small lagoon near London Village
you are met with hundreds of playful bow riding spinner dolphins
in the Cook Island Passage. Water conditions, usually calm and
flat, make the journey to your diving destination enjoyable.
And a lunch time surface interval on either Cook Island or Paris
Point allows our guests to enjoy the many white sand beaches
surrounding Christmas Island. As you pass around the bend on
the south-west part of the island, known as Poland Point, you
can see melon headed whales and bottlenose dolphins circling
large areas of water that seem to be boiling with yellow fin
tuna. Yes, the view from above is nice, but the underwater experience
is exhilarating.
The
reef formations around the island vary from cut and groove patterns,
to large pinnacles that rise up from deep water to just feet
from the surface, and dramatic wall drop-offs. The reefs on the
South side of the Island around the Korean Wreck area promise
divers the same experience they would get on Palau's famous Blue
Corner, with large pelagics such as whale sharks, black-tipped
reef sharks, rainbow runner, and barracuda venturing up over
the drop-off to hunt smaller reef fish. Poland Village's Christmas
Corner is our premier dive site with hundreds of schooling big
eye trevally, barracuda, and several napoleon wrasses swimming
within feet of divers. Even from the moment you do your back-roll
off the boat you are surrounded by playful bottlenose dolphins
who stay with you until you descend to the bottom of the ledge.
Often, our guests will come back year after year just to dive
Christmas Corner.
Near
London Village, the diving is a little more relaxed due to its
protection from the normal easterly trade-winds that often chop-up
the water around Christmas Corner and Korean Wreck, but the action
is no less exciting. Grapple Rocks, a pinnacle located in front
of Cook Island, is a mound of broken-up coral boulders that shoots
up from 70 feet of sand and tops off at 35 feet from the surface.
Here divers can see large schools of fusiliers, an assortment
of large groupers, humphead parrotfish, and an assortment of
small colorful fish. Several large manta rays (commonly seen
from the surface around Cook Island), make this pinnacle their
home and treat divers to a show of loops and turns as they glide
along the reef feeding on plankton. Just a little north, up the
coastline from London Village, is another dive site known as
Eel Gardens. Although it is a mere 45ft deep, this site is home
to an array of moray eels and is also known as the best location
on the planet to find the rare dragon moray eel. This small 2-3ft.
animal is actually quite passive and will allow divers to come
within inches of it with their camera lenses. While a diver in
a place like Hawaii may see a dragon moray once in a lifetime,
these extremely colorful and highly sought after animals can
be found with ease several times during a dive on this site.
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