Praslin & La Digue · Seychelles · Reef
Anse Petit Cour
Five minutes out, around 5 m, in a bay that stays calm
Area photo: Tobias Alt, Tobi 87 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Anse Petit Cour is the beginner's dive on Praslin: five minutes by boat from the dive centre, into a bay where the sea stays calm and the mooring area is well protected. Most of the dive is around 5 m, over a bottom made up mostly of hard and soft corals. It is written up as the best site in the area for total beginners and first-time divers.
Where it is and how deep
4.3081° S, 55.7334° EPublished position for this site.
The dive
The ride is five minutes from the dive centre and ends at a mooring in the bay, which is protected enough that the sea inside it stays calm. That is the reason the site is used the way it is: there is no swell to time an entry around and no current to swim against, so the first minutes of the dive can go on sorting out buoyancy rather than on keeping up with anyone.
Most of the dive sits at around 5 m. The bottom is made up mostly of corals, hard and soft, and the route is a slow tour of that ground at a depth where a tank lasts a long time and the light is still bright. For a first-time diver it is a real dive rather than a pool exercise moved outdoors, and for anyone else it is a shallow coral dive with nothing to plan around.
Marine life and season
The sources we used don't single out particular species here.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Prime | Good |
Season follows Praslin & La Digue: The southeast monsoon runs from May to September; the water is windiest and the visibility thinnest in July and August, while March, April and November log the clearest water.
Questions divers ask
Is Anse Petit Cour good for first-time divers?+
The site's own description calls it the best site for total beginners and first-time divers: five minutes out from the dive centre, most of the dive around 5 m, and a bay where the sea stays calm and the mooring area is well protected.
Sources
- Anse Petit Cour dive site — Scubago
- Anse Petit Cour — OpenStreetMap
More dive sites in Praslin & La Digue
Pinnacle
Granite bank with whitetip, nurse and grey reef sharks
Pinnacle
Granite canyons in the channel between Praslin and La Digue
Pinnacle
Big granite passages, 20 minutes out from Praslin
Reef
A granite reef whose tallest boulder breaks the surface at low tide
Coral garden
A shallow coral reef five to ten minutes off Praslin
Drift
A granite drift with blacktip and whitetip reef sharks
Pinnacle
Granite boulders inside Curieuse Marine National Park
Pinnacle
One giant boulder, 10 to 25 m, with sharks on the granite
Similar dives elsewhere
Sand at 5 m, coral to 9 m, and room to get buoyancy right
An 8 m reef-and-rubble bottom out towards the drop-off
Two coral heads at 9 m where local mantas come to be cleaned
The world's largest known tiger shark aggregation, in 12 m of water