Robinson Crusoe Island (Juan Fernández)

Diving runs from San Juan Bautista, the main town, by boat, and the sites are grouped into three zones by crossing time. Cumberland Bay, home to Sal Si Puedes, lies within 20 minutes. The bay at Tres Puntas is about 40 minutes out, and surface intervals there are spent beside the fur-seal colony. The Los Chamelos islets are the furthest run, and Santa Clara, the small island off Robinson Crusoe, holds the Miraflores wreck and the Los Negros site.

The diving divides between deep dives, caverns and walls. Tres Puntas mixes deep profiles with cavern swims, and the Los Chamelos islets drop as walls suited only to experienced divers. The Miraflores, sunk off Santa Clara in 1921, rests at 36 m and holds a dense bank of life. The animals are particular to the islands: the Juan Fernández fur seal, the archipelago's only endemic mammal, called the two-haired fur seal in Spanish for its double coat, and the clawless Juan Fernández spiny lobster. The German cruiser Dresden, scuttled in Cumberland Bay in the First World War, lies at 70 m, a technical dive.

It suits experienced, unhurried divers who can build a trip around a small air-taxi schedule, with flights clustered in January and February and wind or rain able to stall landings in any month. Dives are offered for every certification level, but the Los Chamelos walls call for advanced divers and the Miraflores wreck for deep certification as well, and the water sits between about 14 and 20 °C. Divers wanting a shorter, easier trip are better served on the mainland.