Explore Long Island

Long island truly has it all, from healthy, calm shallow reefs teeming with tropical life, plunging walls and eerie wrecks to unbelievable deep blue holes that make for excellent tech diving. The fascinating underwater creatures that thrive are prolific in numbers, varying from colorful hard and soft corals, tropical reef fish, eels, stingrays and octopus, to sea turtles and numerous shark species.

Dive centers and dive resorts catering to all budgets are open for business year-round, thanks to welcoming tropical climate that maintains warm waters throughout the seasons, averaging between 27°C-31°C. What’s more, with such varied dive sites easily accessible, along with crystal clear visibility, Long Island serves as a great place to take dive courses, from entry-level all the way up to tech training.

While there are plenty of highlights here, one of the main attractions is the magnificent wall diving at Conception Island, which is an uninhabited national park 15 miles northeast of Long Island. Rum Cay has equally fantastic walls covered in an array of corals, sponges and marine creatures.

As a bonus, Long Island boasts exciting shark diving, in addition to historically important shipwrecks. Dean’s Blue Hole, located west of Clarence Town, also exists here. Dropping to around 200 meters, it’s the deepest blue hole in the world, and is around double the depth of others elsewhere.

The majority of diving around Long Island is by small speedboat, however there are some shore diving possibilities. On average, dive sites are only five or ten minutes by boat from the shore, but trips to Conception Island and Rum Cay take longer.

For timing, the best season for scuba diving is November through May, which is the dry season that delivers favourable weather and ocean conditions. June to October is the rainy/hurricane season, though sunny days occur and little changes underwater.