Vanuatu's five best coral dive sites

Being home to one of the world’s largest intact WWII wrecks, Vanuatu is well known for its wreck diving. But beyond the heavy metal there’s some amazing coral diving to be found.

1 - Owen’s Reef, Tranquility Island, Efate

This stunning dive is a short boat ride from Tranquility Island Eco Resort in Efate. A visiting marine biologist once remarked he’d never before seen a dive site with such abundant coral biodiversity.  

The coral landscape changes at each corner turned, with all sorts of hard corals including some enormous porites, brain and table corals, staghorn corals, and sheltering under the overhangs and inside tunnels, colourful soft corals.

2 - Bonzer Wreck anemone garden, Hideaway Island, Efate

Yes, it’s a wreck, but it’s a very pretty wreck, with one of the largest anemone gardens you’ll ever see. In fact everywhere you go in Vanuatu, you’re likely to find anemone gardens in the shallowest parts of the reef, even on the President Coolidge.

One of the largest however, is next to the Bonzer, a 5-minute boat ride from Hideaway Island Resort. On top of a large coral bommie, this bright orange anemone garden is several metres in diameter, with dozens of clownfish in residence.

And they’ll all come out to say hello as you swim around in the crystal clear, tropical water.

3 - Tutuba Island, Espiritu Santo

Tutuba Island is about a 30 minute boat ride from Luganville in Espiritu Santo and fast becoming one of the most popular dive sites in Espiritu Santo – once you’ve seen the Coolidge and Million Dollar Beach/Point, get yourself a coral-fix here.

Enormous plate coral fields and a seemingly endless variety of soft and hard corals lead into swim-throughs, gloomy trenches and caves where you can spot lobsters guarding their homes.

4 - Fan Garden, Aore Island, Espiritu Santo

A few metres off the beach on Aore Island near Espiritu Santo, this drift dive must be seen to be believed. You’ll feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland as you drift with the current through a forest of seriously enormous sea fans.  

Sometimes called ‘Aore Wall’, in the shallows you’ll find nudibranchs, anemones, a variety of WWII artefacts and if you’re lucky you might also find a colourful mantis shrimp.

5 - West Side Story, Hideaway Island, Efate

Five minutes boat ride from Hideaway Island, this seriously huge field of staghorn coral comes to within 6 m of the surface. To the west of it long fingers covered in yellow, blue and green staghorn coral drop down to a depth of 30m plus.

Large schools of pretty little damsel fish swim just above the staghorn, which also conceals lots of anemones between the branching coral.

For More information visit: www.vanuatu.travel