Raiatea & Taha'a

The dive centres are based in Uturoa on Raiatea, one of them at the marina, and the diving is done by boat. The sites are close: between 7 and 25 minutes by motor boat depending on the spot, and the boats go out every day of the year. Every dive site is fitted with a mooring for the boat, to preserve the environment. Dives in the south of Bora Bora, less than an hour away, are organised regularly, usually as two dives on the same outing.

Nine passes cut the reef around the shared lagoon. Teavapiti, Miri and Ceran are dived as drifts, with jacks, barracudas, Napoleon wrasse, leopard rays and grey, blacktip and whitetip sharks for company. Inside the lagoon lie the Nordby, a three-masted ship with its hull and rigging intact, and the Octopus Hole, a cave with a jaw of stalactites at its entrance. Out in the ocean between the two islands, Miri Miri is a quiet dive with no current over a coral garden where blacktip sharks are always present.

The area suits divers who are comfortable in moving water and want sharks and schooling fish in the passes, around two islands still preserved from mass tourism. Most named sites, Teavapiti Pass and the Nordby among them, take Level 1 or Open Water divers, and Miri Miri is open to all levels. The deeper sites, Ceran Pass among them at 35 to 50 m, ask for Level 2 or rescue diver certification; Level 2 (CMAS) allows dives to 40 m, and to 20 m without a guide if the instructor agrees.