2 replies to this topic

[AMW]

Hi my name is Ajith Fernando and I am from Sunny Sri Lanka, Thats the tear drop just under India in case you havent heard of it before. Not surprising since its a tiny island. But this also means that we have plenty of sea front and some great diving.

I am just an average diver but just starting out as an underwater photographer. Have been messing around with a P&S and now on the verge of investing in a better system. Hope to pick up some good tips to help me to decide. At the moment more or less decided on a Canon 40d but decesion can wait till mid Jan.

Happy diving and all the very best for the new year.

Ajith

Welcome Ajith!
I am curious regarding the diving in Sri Lanka. I have always wanted to visit Sri Lanka, so combining a diving and topside adventure would be ideal. Are there any dive resorts/operations that you would recommend?

[n2addict]

Welcome Ajith!
I am curious regarding the diving in Sri Lanka. I have always wanted to visit Sri Lanka, so combining a diving and topside adventure would be ideal. Are there any dive resorts/operations that you would recommend?

Hi AMW,

Diving in Sri Lanka is a mixed bag! For example last morning (yes Monday Morning!) I was diving about 10 km from Colombo and about 5 km out to sea. Fantastic wreck dive with about 25m of visibility. After surfacing from the first dive I was just drifting along when suddenly we were being circled by two whales (no idea what kind at the moment). It was a magical moment.

The negative of diving in Colombo is that there are no dive operators operating around here so we have to organize everything our selves. Plenty of commercial divers who dive for color fish but you wouldnt want to dive with them!

On the other hand there are a number of dive centers operatng further down south sme of them being of fairly decent standards. But by and large its a fairly adventurous destination if you know wht I mean.

As a pure dive destination I am not too sure about Sri Lanka. But it is a fantatic place to vist with plenty of things to see including wil life ancient cultures etc etc. However you may have also heard that there is a conflict going on with more averse publicity than acutual problems.

For info on diving check out www.srilankadiving.com

feel free to contact me if you need any more informaton to help you to decide. I do know almost all the dive centers along the coast so once you decide on where you want to be I can give you a rn down on whats available and their quality.

Hope to see you soon.

[maxman2402]

I've got some more up to date information about diving in Sri Lanka for the people still wondering about it.

A couple of weeks ago i went to sri lanka for a 3 weeks vacation (January till Februari 2013), I can recommend you NOT to go diving near the Colombo and Negombo area. Don't get me wrong they have great dive sites there, but the staff of the diving centers are just awefull, we stayed in negombo and chose to dive with DivingSriLanka.com (a so called 5 star padi dicve center), bad idea. The instructor had no eye for us (we were the only ones) and even tough the visibility was only 5 meters we had to rush our self to keep up with him because he was not looking back at us. We ARE experienced divers but this was just a plain dangerous dive going after the instructor who decided underwater to dive with the current instead of against it first, we had no choice then to follow him. eventually this led to my buddy needing to buddy breath with the instructor on the way back which he only allowed when she reached 10bars! and me surfacing with only 10ish bars in my tank left! We dove at a depth of 23 meters so it was a very close call. the other dive center in Negombo which we did not choose to dive with could not even speak plain english, french nor could they speak german, so we automatically dismissed that one (ssi). If you really want to go diving in Sri Lanka anyways i would recommend you to go to either Hikkaduwa or Unawatuna. there the water is crystal clear and have a lot of corals unlike the west-coast near Colombo and Negombo!

cheers, i hope i did not scare you off with my own horrible experience!

Max Daniël