80 Senses #13… Neptune’s Arm, Vamizi

Category: Place

Can one really, definitively, declare anything ‘The Best….in the World’? Of course not, and as we’ve mentioned before, our 80 Senses are shamelessly subjective, but we think we might have found the world’s best dive. That’s dive as in scuba, you understand, not seedy bar.

The best dive in the world…

Several expert divers with several thousand dives under their weight belts consider Neptune’s Arm, off the coast of Vamizi Island in Mozambique, to be the crème de la crème of dives, and with good reason – it’s got everything from jaw-dropping geography to an abundance of marine life both big and small, and near perfect visibility when conditions permit.

Up to 30 reef sharks

The 40-minute boat ride there can be dramatic enough, with humpback whales often visible migrating along the Mozambique Channel, but the fun really begins beneath the surface. This is the edge of the African continental plate, and once you’re in the water the wall drops dramatically into the inky but beautifully clear blue. On closer inspection, the wall – known as Fraggle Rock – is home to an extraordinary amount of micro-organisms. The real fun, however, begins around the corner in an area of canyons and pinnacles. Tim Simond, our partner on Dive in Style described seeing ‘an incessant waterfall of long-nose emporers and snappers in their thousands…. while some 30 grey reef sharks patrolled their domain.’

The difficulty is where to look next, and how to regulate your breathing so it’s not all over too quickly, but once back in the boat, you’ll be smiling all the way back to the immaculate Vamizi Lodge – the only place to stay in striking distance of the dive site.

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Part of our new series ‘Around the World in 80 Senses’, celebrating our favourite things from our extensive travels. As with any self-respecting list, there’s absolutely no scientific basis to the choices we’ve made. It’s all shamelessly subjective, and we’ll be listing this year’s 80 Senses (in no particular order) between now and Christmas, so keep an eye out for new entries here on the blog and on our Twitter and Facebook pages.