Akamas Peninsula & Latchi

Boat diving runs from Latchi harbour, where daily trips for certified divers leave at 8:30 am on custom-built dive boats. Most sites lie about 20 minutes away, and the first dive opens with a full briefing at the site. A surface interval of around 45 minutes follows while the boat moves to the second site, and the boats are generally back in harbour around 1 pm. Dives last 40 to 60 minutes, depending on air.

The seabed is rock and sand, broken into small caves, swim-throughs, canyons and gullies, with a few walls and drop-offs and seagrass at the foot of some of the rock. Lionfish, squirrelfish, groupers, amberjacks and peacock worms live along the St George's wall, while barracuda, squid, lobsters, crabs and rays turn up around the coast, and even dolphins.

The coast suits divers who like terrain and a bit of archaeology, and its shallow sites make it an easy place to start or restart: Aphrodite's Rock, from 2 m to 10 m, suits divers back after a long break, and Blue Lagoon is used for training dives. St George's Reef, a maze of shallow swim-throughs and short canyons, is a place to practise natural navigation. Guided dives run with no more than 5 divers per guide, and visibility can reach 40 m on the best days.

The peninsula is a national park and a Special Protection Area for birds. Two of its turtle-nesting beaches are Natura 2000 sites, the Polis-Gialia area is a Special Area of Conservation, and Lara Bay has a hatchery where the turtles' eggs are protected. At Mazaki Reef, about 200 m offshore at the tip of the cape, the harsher seas of the western edge meet the protected water inside the bay.