Praslin & La Digue · Seychelles · Coral garden · Reef
Coral Garden
A shallow coral reef five to ten minutes off Praslin
Area photo: Tobias Alt, Tobi 87 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Coral Garden is a reef dive 5 to 10 minutes by boat from Praslin, in around 10 to 15 m of water. Soft and hard corals cover the ground, and colourful reef fish work across it with yellow snappers around them. Depth is not the point of this one: it is a short ride out to shallow reef that is dived slowly.
Where it is and how deep
4.2870° S, 55.7442° EPublished position for this site.
The dive
The ride out is 5 to 10 minutes from Praslin, which makes it one of the shortest trips on the roster, and the dive starts on reef rather than on the granite that shapes most of the area's other sites. Depth is around 10 to 15 m throughout, so the dive is long and flat: you work along the reef at one level instead of stepping down through it.
The ground is a run of reef encrusted with corals, soft and hard together, and the fish are the reason to slow down over it. Colourful reef fish cover the coral and yellow snappers hold around them, which is what most divers take away from the site. Whitetip reef sharks, green and hawksbill turtles and octopus are all logged here too. With the whole dive inside 15 m the limiting factor is gas rather than depth, so there is no reason to hurry any part of it.
Marine life and season
- Reef fish swarms
- Reef sharks
- Sea turtles
- Octopus & cuttlefish
| 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
How deep is Coral Garden?+
Around 10 to 15 m for the whole dive. It is a flat reef profile rather than a descent, and the boat ride out from Praslin is 5 to 10 minutes.
Sources
- Coral Garden dive site — Scubago
More dive sites in Praslin & La Digue
Reef
Five minutes out, around 5 m, in a bay that stays calm
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
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
Cabbage coral from 5 to 20 m with a swim-through canyon alongside
Bioluminescent glow after dark gave this reef its ghost name
Coral shelves to 18 m with green turtles as the constant
Soft, leather and fan corals with sponges at 15–25 m, and no current