When it is said that passion has no limits … 50 miles off the coast of Nosy Be there is a coral shoal covering several square miles where Manta has begun to make sporadic exploratory dives. This place is called Banco del Gran Castoro (Great Beaver’s Bench). To get there it takes about 2h and a half when the sea is calm.
Along the way , we can spot some crevasses reaching 900 meters and then going up to 20 meters near the bench; this is a good area for offshore fishermen and you will not find any other diving boat except ours.
In 2017 we explored 2 dive sites for you, but they are for expert divers, at least rescue with “deep” specialties, and at least with 200 dives. The seabed and the sea have very different characteristics from those of Nosy Be.
The conformation reminds the rocky sea bottom of the European seas, while the marine weather conditions, during the months from the end of June to mid-October, create real ocean waves thus limiting the explorations from April to early June and from late October to early January. After that, the rainy season begins.
Many species of pelagic fish you can meet here are big, very big!
You can also meet sailfish, ocean groupers, giant shoals of ignobilis jackfish, dogtooth tuna, barracudas and much more. In addition to the gray sharks that we can meet in the waters of Nosy Be, we can experience close encounters with large specimens of Leucas sharks, tiger and blue sharks.
However, in addition to meeting these great predators, we will not find a lush and rich in coral bottom, but rather walls, sandy plains and stretches of what was once called a reef.
Dives here are not carried out regularly, they are still in an exploratory phase, the cost is out of price and they can not be booked in advance.
If you come on holiday with a small group of friends and you want to explore, contact us for a consultation, we will try to organize.
Level: Open Water Diver / Advanced
Photography: Environment / Macro
We aimed at finding the Galeocerdo cuvier (tiger shark) and the Carcharhinus leucas (leuca shark also known as Zambesi or bull shark).
We missed the tiger shark, but we found one of the territories of the leuca shark: a shoal in the middle of the Indian Ocean that ends on a sandy bottom at 45/50 meters according to the tide.
Even if this is a quite challenging dive, it is nevertheless easy to carry out, since all you have to do is go down to the bottom, kneel or relax in case of current and enjoy the passage of these giants with sharp teeth, swimming far from you and looking for some food.
Level: Rescue/Deep with experience
Photograhpy: Environment
Ready on the boat, we descended on a rocky plateau down at 25 meters and continued down along a vertical wall ending at around 60 meters.
We immediately realized the origin of its name: three large spurs creating the shape of a fork.
In the underwater bays between the spurs, we find ravines that give shelter to the most defenseless fish and to large groupers living there.
Large fish schools, mostly carangidae, dentex and Macolors were slowly swimming from one bay to another, while at the bottom of a landslide we spotted a splendid coral shape hostings hundreds of glass fish.
However, our purpose was another: we wanted to see the lords of the sea that eventually showed themselves in the blue and welcomed us for a short time before changing direction.
Level: Rescue/Deep with experience
Photograhpy: Environment
