Diving In India?

[Banned Member]

I was wondering if anybody has been to India and gone diving.

For a tropical country, with a ton of coastline it doesn't seem to get a lot of talk in the diving world. Perhaps because the water is murky, or over-polluted, but with so many miles of beach, there's got to be something out there.

If anybody can give any info on diving within the mainland of India (What can I expect to see, temperatures, etc?) or islands which are Indian terroritories I'd appreciate it. Also please share any of your experiences if you have been.

[bubblemonkey]

I have spent well over a year travelling around India and have never seen a Dive op, I think the Maldives in Indian territory.

[MartianBeerPig]

Doesn't seem to be a lot for such a long coast line. According to this site (http://www.tourismofindia.com/hi_old/divedestinations.htm), only about three areas. Perhaps that means lots of undiscovered locations.

[Hank49]

I've been from Visakhaputnam down to Madurai in the south on the east coast and the coastal waters were pretty much brown (I DID see some pretty nice looking waves though). The salinity drops into the 20s during the rainy season from major river runoff. A large part of the Himalayas drain into the Bay of Bengal.

[Banned Member]

Interesting stuff.

The Maldives aren't part of India, but Laccadives Island group (North of Maldives) off the Kerala coast are.

They are pretty much the same as the Maldives from images I've seen.

And Hank, you are correct. From what I've seen the water never looks really clear in pictures. It's either brown, or a dark blue. :(

On the tourist sites they always show fake pictures of Goa as well it seems. Because Goa doesn't look like it has very clear water from tourist pics.

[Bowmouth]

Probably the most interesting area to visit to dive in India are the Andaman Islands. To get a little bit an idea of what it has to offer visit the following site :
http://www.barefootindia.com/contents/fe/home.aspx

Another option is to book a spot on one of the (rare) Andaman Islands liveaboard cruises from Thailand based dive operators.

[Banned Member]

Probably the most interesting area to visit to dive in India are the Andaman Islands. To get a little bit an idea of what it has to offer visit the following site :
http://www.barefootindia.com/contents/fe/home.aspx

Another option is to book a spot on one of the (rare) Andaman Islands liveaboard cruises from Thailand based dive operators.

Wow, that place looks incredible. I'll really look into it.

Thanks a ton. Great site link as well. I've searched for the Andaman Islands before, but most of the sites seemed to be old and out-dated, with pictures taken on the Great Barrier Reef (Online copied probably).

[bubblemonkey]

I travelled down the east coast and up the west and the water is brown all the way round, as for Goa it never looks as nice as the pics you see.

[Allison Finch]

Sri Lanka has really good diving. It's not too far off the southern tip of India. Unfortunately, the best diving is in some of the "touchier" areas.

[csnake]

I just did some brilliant dives at Netrani Island in Karnataka in the first week of February. There are no local diveshops there, but there are diveshops in Goa that organise dive safari's to Netrani. I contacted DiveGoa, and they set up the dives for me. Their website is www.divegoa.com. The dive crew was very professional, and the rental gear was in very good shape.

Netrani was about a 4 hour drive from Goa, and the vis there was about 20 m on the four dives that I did there.. there were a huge variety of fish there, large groupers, snappers, triggerfish, Cobia, and Moray eels everywhere.. I totally enjoyed the dives. Nothing to beat diving in warm clear water! :)

I did a few dives at Goa as well, where the vis was much lower (about 5m) on an average, but there was a nice shipwreck to explore, with plenty of fish around, and there was a surprising amount of plate and whip coral around the island.

[Doc Intrepid]

Just stay away from the Ganges! :D

[pakman]

Just stay away from the Ganges! :D

my same thoughts! just read an article last night saying in some parts of the Sacred Ganges, they've reported a fecal bateria count 4,000 times over the WHO recommendation for safe bathing water... :shocked:

Back to the subject... there is a SB member who runs a dive shop in India. Try PM'ing vkalia (http://http://www.scubaboard.com/member.php?u=51631) or visit his shop's website http://www.diveindia.com/. This is for diving in the Andamans but he might be able to help out with other info.

[jonxplorer]

Hi Folks,
I know this thread is a bit old but for the benefit of readers in the future. There are a lot of undiscovered dive destinations on mainland india but because of lack of dive outfits willing to take the extra trouble with the authorities to get to these areas, they are left untapped. Dive schools in Goa do conduct trips for some excellent diving in Netrani Karnataka. In addition, Goa Aquatics www.goaaquatics.com is planning to start some even more interesting dive trips. The ones I am interested in are the Angria banks and Burnt Island in Maharastra India. I have been on a fishing trip to Burnt Island and know first hand that this would be a fantastic place to dive and I dont think anyone has dived there before except maybe of the folks from the National Oceanographic institute. Hope this helps.

Cheers!

[csnake]

Hi!

Just to add to the last post, I did some diving with an outfit called Dive Goa.
(www.divegoa.com) They were very professional.. and the diving at Netrani was excellent.

[janneppi]

I visited India and the Andaman islands this April. Although it takes some effort to get to the islands, it is really worth it. I went diving with Dive India (on Havelock) and I have only positive thing to say about their operations. Diving is like diving in Thailand but much much less crowded.

More info:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Havelock_Island
http://www.diveindia.com/

[flabelline]

Hi Jannepi !

Could you describe your dives in the Andaman Islands ? I wonder whether I should go there or not (I'll be travelling in south India in december-january). Thank you.

[DontLieToMe]

I found diving in the Andamans to be completely unlike diving in Thailand. I spent 11 nights on a liveaboard this February. Unlike the Andaman Sea in Thailand and Myanmar I did not find any soft corals in the entire time with the exception of a little patch at one spot on Barren Island. Everywhere else there was hard corals or rock with very little color. Also unlike the Thailand/Myanmar environment there was very little invertebrate life. Fish life was limited.

[flabelline]

Thank you for your reply. It is very helpful for me, because there are many things to see in south India and I don't want to spend one week (out of three) in the Andaman Islands if there is no great diving there.

I read somewhere else that the corals had been suffering from the warmth, with el nino. Have you seen a lot of dead coral ? And what about the consequences of the tsunami ?

Did you see big fishes, such a sharks, manta rays, as the Andaman's dive shop say on their web sites ? Reading your post it seems that neither the corals nor the fishes were outstanding...

[GoorglinGeorge]

I found the diving anything but great. I don't think the lack of soft corals is a function of the El Nino but since this was my first trip to the area I can't really say. I was in general surprised by the lack of color even in the hard corals. There might have been a glimpse of a shark once, no mantras, and very little in terms of fish action. In my opinion, much better diving at other locations.