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Port Vila & Efate · Vanuatu · Reef · Coral garden

West Side Story

Long fingers of blue, yellow and green staghorn on the western side

West Side Story is a reef near Hideaway Island Resort in Mele Bay and one of the stand-out dives on Efate. Its two sides dive very differently: a shallow eastern face and a western side where long fingers of staghorn coral run down into deeper water.

Where it is and how deep

Depth profile of West Side Story: typical dive 6–30 m (20–100 ft) 18 m · Open Water30 m · Advanced40 m · Recreational limit6 m30 mtypical dive
Depths on a shared scale to 40 m (130 ft); dashed lines mark common certification limits.

17.6969° S, 168.2633° EApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.

The dive

The top of the reef comes to within 6 m of the surface. On the east side the coral bottoms out at about 12 m, so that face stays shallow. The west side is the reason for the name: long fingers of staghorn coral in shades of blue, yellow and green stretch out and down to a depth of about 30 m. Anemones are numerous, with the occasional eagle ray, moray or shark.

Marine life and season

  • Pristine corals
  • Eagle rays
Month-by-month season rating for West Side Story
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Season follows Port Vila & Efate: Diving runs all year; July to September is the dry peak, and November to April brings cyclones, with some closures from mid-January to mid-March.

Dive videos

west side story reef · Juice Outdoors on YouTube

Sources

  1. Dive Sites — Big Blue Scuba Vanuatu
  2. Guide to diving Vanuatu — Vanuatu Tourism Office
  3. Mele Bay, Efate (Hideaway Island) — OpenStreetMap

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