Flying Fish Cove Christmas Island WA

This Christmas Island’s Flying Fish Cove shore dive rates as my best shore dive in the whole world. Here is a short video of the reef fish you can expect to see around Christmas Island.  Some footage is from other sites, but 90% of all the species that are to be found all around Christmas Island will be found in Flying Fish Cove.

Here is a short video of the reef fish you can expect to see around Christmas Island.  Some footage is from other sites, but 90% of all the species will be found in Flying Fish Cove.

Park across the road from the boat ramp, gear up and walk straight down the boat ramp into the warm, clear Indian Ocean. (The ramp is to the left of the wharf in this Google Earth view.)

Follow the line of the ramp straight out until you hit the drop off. Turn towards your left and work your way down the drop off to about 18 meters just following the slope along. After about 20 minutes come back up the 9m on the slope, turn sharp left towards the shore line, and then work your way back along the shallows at 9 m and navigate back up the ramp via the two chains which are laid out like airport landing lights to guide you back in! A very easy dive – you really can’t go wrong and you’ll see more fish and coral types in that one dive than you’d see in a week at other places. Here’s a small sample of what we saw on a single dive.

The Longnose Butterflyfish.

Racoon Butterflyfish

The Freckled Hawkfish

The Whitetail Squirrelfish

The Coral Grouper or Rockcod.

The Blue Tang, also now known as a “Dory”.

The Bluelined Surgeonfish

Meyer’s Butterflyfish is very common at Christmas Island and neighbouring Cocos Keeling Islands.

The Blackspotted Pufferfish that has a face remarkably like a sealion.

The Ornate Hawkfish.

After the dive there are toilets and showers in the carpark where you can wash down your gear. There’s a little coffee wagon, and gas barbeques to knock up some lunch.