Mombasa Marine Park and the Bamburi area to the north offers some of Kenya's best dive sites. Diving in and around this area is mainly reef drop offs with beautiful corals, abundant marine life and the chance to see large pelagic species. There are a couple of wrecks, some exciting drift dives and some deep dives for experienced divers only. The best dive season is September to March when the sea is calmest.

Mtwapa Drop Off is subject to strong currents which the soft corals and seafans filter feed off. The currents also attract pelagic species. Large potato groupers are common. Huge sunken boat anchors can be found in the channel. The drop off starts at 10m and drops to 35m.

Shark Point 1 and Shark Point 2 are located to the south of Mtwapa Drop Off and are favourite dive sites in this area. They are suitable for all levels of diver with ledges at different depths down to a maximum of 26m. White tip reef sharks are usually seen patrolling the reef edge here. Giant moray eels are numerous on the wall and turtles are often spotted. There is usually a mild current.

Stingray City is located just south of Shark Point. A large sand patch at 8m deep is a good place to spot blue spotted stingrays. This is an easy dive site for all levels of diver. The maximum depth is 22m. Turtles are also often seen here.

Mushroom is named after a large mushroom coral where moray eels, including giant moray and the less common honeycomb moray can be found. Turtles and groupers can also be seen. Maximum depth is 23m. There is often a current to drift along with. Larger pelagic species can often be seen here.

Green Turtle dive site is the most likely place to see turtles although it is possible to see them all the way along the reef. This dive site is also called Kasa which is Swahili for turtle. Maximum depth here is 23m.

Brain Coral dive site is imaginatively named after the large brain corals here. Larger inhabitants here are turtles, stingrays and blue fin trevally. However this is also an excellent dive site for smaller species and nudibranchs. Maximum depth is 20m.

Coral Garden is a beginners dive site with a maximum depth of 8m. Clear water, shallow depth and no currents on the inside of the reef make this a good refresher dive. There are lots of schools of small reef fish. Lionfish, pufferfish, wrasse, and stingrays are all common here.

Mombasa Dive Sites continued >>

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