45 to 95Seventeen places on one rubric, scored wet on trips I paid for and published whether or not the number flattered. Six of the sixteen ranked came in under seventy; one scored too long ago to rank.
Every place below has two numbers: the reef, and the people who ran the diving. Tell me what would ruin the week and I will take those off the list. The rest is ranked, best first.
Say what you would rather avoid, what you shoot, and when you can go. Leave anything open and every place is judged at its own best month.
Not shooting?
Leave it open and every place is judged at its own best month.
Per person per day, in US dollars, the best-scored operator at each place. Shore diving is never priced out.
Scored for the whole trip: the diving, the photography, and the week for the diver or snorkeller who came with you. Six axes, equal weight, the same everywhere; the operator on its own.
I have dived and scored every destination I run trips to. Some did not earn a second visit; trips go to the ones that did.
The northwest season has settled by November and the reserve is at its most reliable. Mantas are on the cleaning stations, the soft coral is open, and the water has not yet gone milky.
The lodge runs mid-August to the end of October. By late September the summer algae bloom has cleared, the water is at its darkest and clearest, and the winter seas have not arrived.
The northeast monsoon is still running in March. Seas are flat, visibility holds at twenty-five to forty metres, and the plankton sits on the western side of the atolls, which is where the mantas and the whale sharks are.