Maratua

Maratua Island offers vertical walls dives with pristine coral, strong currents and the potential for lots of BIG pelagics. Don’t be surprised to see grey reef sharks, leopard sharks and white tip reef sharks. For our luckier divers, you may also encounter hammerheads, whale sharks and even thresher sharks! Rays are also common here, especially eagle rays, devil rays and giant stingrays. Schooling barracuda, snapper, dogtooth tuna, spanish mackerel, jackfish, and surgeonfish are some other species you may encounter.

This is also the best place in the area to dive with bumphead parrotfish and napoleon wrasse. Of course you will also see more than just a few turtles! ☺

Dive sites such as Gorgonzola and Light house showcases some pristine corals in the shallows that will leave you mesmerized. Diving deeper into these dive sites you may have encounters with sharks, especially white-tips, leopard and grey reef sharks.

Mid Reef is the best place to dive with thresher sharks (you will need some luck) and it's common to also see nurse sharks, eagle rays, giant stingrays and big schools of jackfish.

Please take note: We do not dive: Big Fish Country dive site on Maratua (also known as “The Channel”)
We do not dive this particular site as it can only be dived at certain times of the day due to the tides, and as it’s a deep dive (30m) with dangerously strong currents it has to be dived as the first dive. It also should only be dived by people with a minimum 100+ logged dives. Due to our location and distance from this particular site, diving here is not feasible. Most importantly, when we dived this dive site (prior to opening our dive centre), our dive professionals evaluated this site over numerous dives and deemed it as TOO HIGH RISK due to very strong down currents (including small whirlpools), vertical walls with extreme depths and a 3 hour+ boat trip to nearest medical help in case of an accident or medical emergency.

Due to all this, we decided this particular dive site is not suitable for our guests, as safety is our main priority.

Rest assured there are better dive sites in the area with higher chances of seeing both large pelagic / schools of fish and unusual macro life than this dive site. Big Fish Country dive sites' main “attraction” is the adrenaline (and in our opinion dangerous) currents, not its marine life.  We would rather take you where the marine life is better :)

As this island is almost 70KM from the mainland the visibility is usually incredible and it's common for it to be in the 40+m range!

There are dive sites on Maratua that’s suitable for all types of divers, however some of the sites with very strong currents are only suitable for very experienced divers.

To guarantee* going to Maratua Island you will need to sign up for a minimum 6 day dive package. Click here to find out about our great dive packages.