Submerge yourself in a world of volcanic vents and plunging sea walls, reefs teeming with colorful sponges and water lilies, towering pinnacles, and alluring caves. And be enchanted by your seafaring hosts—everything from hawksbill turtles to majestic sperm whales, barracuda, eels, tuna, blue chromis, and more. Most dive sites are within 300 yards of shore.
So get beyond the beach and reach into the heart of Dominica's azure colored coastal waters laden with life-renewing splendor.
Maggie's Point
Batalie Beach
Rodney's Rock
Brain Coral Reef
Coral Garden - St. Joseph
The Lauro Reef
The Nose Reef
The Whale Shark Reef
Barry's Dream
Easy Street Reef
Soufriere-Scotts Head Marine Reserve
Dangleben's Pinnacles
The Abym
Soufriere Pinnacles
The Witch
Soufriere to the Witch
Scott's Head Drop Off
Dangleben’s North
Scotts Head Pinnacle
Crater's Edge
Mooring: 45ft
Max depth: 110ft
Description: Off to Mero Bay are few isolated sites including this one. It is made up of several lava flows extending offshore to the west and separated by sand valleys. They are covered with all sorts of filtering organisms such as sponges and crinoids. Large quantities of fish plow the waters and we often find well-camouflaged scorpion fishes and many stingrays laid on the sand.
Diving from Batalie beach
Max depth: 95ft
Description: Day and night, this site offers a magnificent sight due to the variety of fishes. The start of the beach allows a gradual descent ideal for baptisms, beginners or for a first diving season. You can find morays, octopus, basket stars, barracudas…
Mooring: 45ft
Max depth: 110ft
Description: This rocky advance presents an ideal site for scuba diving as well as for a discovery in PMT. We meet small creatures and all tropical fish in reefs. The site holds the record of having 11 seahorses in a single dive. After circling the main rock and those around a little further offshore, you can take a shortcut to return to the boat through a narrow and high slit where lobsters hide.
Mooring: 30 ft
Max depth: 90 ft
Description: This site takes its name from the exceptional presence of brain corals that welcome all kinds of tropical fishes such as groupers, knights and chests, angels, trumpets and butterflies.
Depth: 15m
Visibility: very good
Description: Diving at shallow depth. Classic wildlife with a 20 cm long yellow toadfish, a filipino scorpion fish, stingrays and turbots, and a 15 cm long seahorse.
Mooring: 30 ft
Max depth: 90 ft
Description: This site is ideal to go back in the water after a long abstinence of dives, while offering the wealth of Dominicans funds. There is a wide variety of sponges of all colors and shapes, gorgonians and deeper we can find hard corals. With low exposure to near-shore currents, the perfect site to find the small inhabitants of the reef such as shrimps, crabs, blennies or colored nudibranchs.
Mooring: 30 ft
Max depth: 45 ft
Description: This site is composed of small reefs placed on the white sand. We can approach it from the outside by crossing a tunnel which shelters lobsters and rare cicadas of sea. Once sheltered from the occasional currents, it is like an aquarium housing multi-colored fish, scorpion fish. The sandy bottom surprises us with spotted serpentines well buried in the sand as well as many conch trees.
Thanks to this very low depth and white sand, the colors seem even more vivid.
Mooring: 45 ft
Max depth: 110 ft
Description: An impressive drop decorated with corals and giant sponges, here is the beauty of the site. We can find turtles which hide in the cavities of the cliff. Full-fledged fishes are not uncommon: tuna, barracudas and occasionally nurse sharks.
Mooring: 20 ft
Max depth: 90 ft
Description: This site off to Mero has two parts, hard to explore in a single dive.
The first one is a wall of 6 to 20 meters richly covered with corals and sponges. On the upper plateau, we cross real forests of sea fans. The second part is between 15 and 30m (45 to 90feet) and consists of several rocks placed on the sandy bottom. Some divers have seen eagles rays!
Mooring: 35 ft
Max depth: 35 ft
Description: After a short crossing of sand area, we find the site composed of several rocks placed on the sandy bottom. It is interesting in zigzagging between them and discovering the slugs, shrimps, moray eels, which live on the site and it is not uncommon to cross a band of calamari.
The Soufriere-Scott’s Head Marine Reserve (SSMR) is located on the south-western tip of the island. It encompasses the villages of Scott’s Head and Soufrière up to Anse Bateau, near the village of Pointe Michel. It is the most picturesque bay on the island, both below and above the water.
The region is dominated by the Scott’s Head or Cachacrou Peninsula; separating the calmer Caribbean Sea from the wilder Atlantic Ocean. During the island’s turbulent past the headland was home to a battalion of Scots Guards, who used to fire warning cannon when fleets from Martinique approached. There is still an old gun emplacement there with a commanding view across the bay to Roseau, and across the channel to Martinique.
The bay is an extinct volcanic crater plummeting to indeterminate depths as a lava chute. There are many Carib myths and legends associated with the region, adding to its mystery.
Named for the bubbling waters rising from volcanic thermal springs on the ocean floor, Champagne Reef attracts diving and snorkeling enthusiasts from around the world. Th...
Depth: 15 m
Visibility: intermediate
Description: Named after the Dangleben family who owned the land at the edge of the dive site. Interesting underwater relief with the presence of five reefs emerging at about 8 meters deep, with a deep base... The particularity of the site is that on each reef, a different life has developed, which makes diving on this site very varied. We saw also two porcupines.
Depth: 20-30 m
Visibility: very good
Description: The name of the site means in Creole “the depth” ... Indeed, this site presents one of the most vertical walls of the island, covered with healthy and varied corals (barrels, anemones, tubes). In addition to classic wildlife, stingray, two scorpionfishes, lizards, trumpets (in large quantities), this site is renowned for the microfauna and is a paradise for the photographers. In particular, it is easy to observe shrimps in symbiosis with anemones, spiders noses (2-5 cm) and even three seahorses (6-10 cm).
Depth: 30 m
Visibility: good
Description: Located in front of the Soufrière’s church, this site is accessible either from a boat or from the shore (100 meters away, passing over thermal springs underwater). Classic fauna.
Depth: 40 m
Visibility: good
Description: Site located directly under a cliff known as The Witch. Legend tells that the inhabitants of the island rushed their unfaithful bride from the top of it, or as the warriors jumped to certain death rather than fall into the hands of their enemies. The anchorage is only 5 meters deep, but immediately, a vertical wall plunges to the abyss, more than 250 meters. Some scorpion fishes, and also a large ray.
Depth: deep
Visibility: good
Description: Sometimes, in Dominica, the current can be really strong, often accompanied with strong winds which prevent divers boats from moving too far. In this case, a drift dive can be a really good alternative! In our case, we drifted from Soufriere to the Witch - two famous sites - which allows us to observe a large amount of fishes, including scorpionfishes, morays, stingray, an enormous porcupine fish (the largest we ever have seen), a turtle, soles and shrimps. Corals are beautiful too.
Depth: 10-30 m
Visibility: intermediate
Description: Falling downhills gently up to 70 meters. Great choices of hard and soft corals. A big barracuda more than a meter long followed us a moment ... It is interesting to note that most of the fauna is at 10 meters deep - this site is therefore ideal for snorkelling. There are also schools of snappers, large porcupines and some morays.
Depth: 30 m
Visibility: good
Description : Because of its relative distance from the coast, this site is extremely rich in fishes. We also had the opportunity to observe a large number of morays...
Depth: 25-30 m
Visibility: very good
Description: The main characteristic of this site is the presence of an arch 13 meters deep. The general relief is relatively marked, with the presence of many valleys. Two brown seahorses, a scorpion fish, crabs, lobsters and morays.
Continuing northwest from Scott's Head Pinnacle there is a volcanic ridge that leads out to Crater's Edge. This site is guaranteed to please. There are masses of black jack, bar jacks, rainbow runners, tuna, yellowtail snapper and cero, all pursuing schools of baitfish who dart back and forth in a futile attempt to escape their hunters. If you can peel your eyes from this frantic activity and look toward the pinnacle you will see waterfalls of Creole wrasse and brown and blue chromis. Behind all this activity is a spectacular wall covered in colorful sponges and giant barrel sponges. It is not uncommon to be followed by one or two giant barracuda escorting you from the area. The Crater's Edge Pinnacle can easily be circumnavigated during a single dive, or one could follow the volcanic ridge towards Scott's Head Pinnacle.
