If you are heading out to Kenya for some diving in the Indian Ocean, then you will be looking at one of the main four resorts. In the north of the area the main diving resort is Lamu and in the south you have Mombasa and Diana Beach. In between these two areas you are looking at going to dive at Watamu.

Sadly for the area, poor diving techniques and years of lack of care of the diving areas has historically resulted in damage to the reef systems, but fortunately there are marine parks in the areas now that are providing good diving experiences for visiting divers.

Lamu in the north of the area is an archipelago of seven islands. it is not a popular diving destination and this is actually a benefit to the area. There are not that many operators operating out of the area, but track down a suitable diver centre and they can then help you to experience some quality reefs.

In the middle region, the Watmu-Malindii Marine Park is the place where you will find the best diving experiences. In this region most of the dives will be drift dives, so suitable training or at least knowledge of the required techniques can be an advantage. The reward can be to see large pelagics during your dive. for the lucky you will witness Manta Rays and the even more fortunate will get to see the huge Whale Sharks on their dives in this area.

Most of the dive sites around here are actually surprisingly shallow, allowing for quite long dives. most fall into the 20m and less region with only a few going beyond the 30m mark. If you want a change from the drift dive, you can also experience the Shakwe wreck, which is an old prawn trawler. it has been taken over by a reef and has plenty of rays, groupers and lionfish for you to admire.

Away from the Marine Park in the central region is Watamu itself, further south. There are a good number of dive sites in this area, which are buoyed to protect the coral. As well as the manta rays and whale sharks already mentioned plus the usual reef fish, you might also see dolphins, turtles and sharks.

Dropping down to the south of the Kenyan diving area we look at the bustling town of Mombasa where sadly the reefs have not been as protected as they could have been. this means that most divers will use the area as a staging post to reach Tanzania’s Pemba Channel and the Kisite-Mpungiti Marine National Park.

Most of the diving within this region therefore concentrates on the huge sandy coastline down to Gazi Bay. Benefiting from good facilities and a reef system just offshore, the diving can be one long experience of the same experience at all of the dive sites. But Turtles, grouper and sting rays commonly visit the area, a worthy site for visitors that are probably more called to the area for the beaches than for the quality of the diving.

Kenyan Diving – Manta Rays, Whale Sharks, Turtles and More

Tags: benefit, reefs

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 9:00 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.