Don’t let the depths fool you, these sites are great for keeping your skills fresh or gaining that extremely important dive-experience when you’re just starting out.
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Fifi Wreck (5m approx):
A personal favourite, and a place almost every diver who has ever dived in Bahrain will have visited. This is the 5m depth-training zone most instructors and dive centers choose for their Padi Open Water students. The added benefit being that it’s quite a lovely site for a relaxed dive – particularly if your idea of diving is blowing bubbles and watching beautiful fish!
The wreck itself is a 50ft approx. yacht which was sunk in the 1980s period after hitting a coral head and eventually breaking into two clearly visible halves.
Dilmunia Rock (5m – 10m)
Ticking all the boxes, the newly discovered Dilmunia Rock is less than 2km off-shore and offers a great selection of fish life including Bahrain’s famous Nudibranch. The site itself offers a rock wall with features above the wall on a rocky bottom at 5m and at the bottom of this pseudo drop-off another sandy bottom. Fish life on the wall itself is incredible for a site so close to our island and additional life can be found on rocky outcroppings leading perpendicularly off from the wall. Watch out for large congregations of sea snails and Instructors using this great natural navigation feature for training students.
The Artificial Reef – just off Amwaj (7m approx):
Just a short boat ride from Dilmunia Rock and minutes from Amwaj Marina, Bahrain’s very own Artificial Reef made of special concrete reef balls and more. Enjoy an array of fish life attracted by this man-made safe-zone plus Bahrain’s largest Angel-Fish (very impressive and great for photographers). Another draw is the impressive population of Nudibranch, ensuring macro-photographers stay occupied for hours on end.
Reef Arabia (7-9m approx):
A second Artificial Reef, similar to the reef mentioned above, but on a much larger scale and featuring scale models of traditional Pearl Merchants houses and more interesting structures – all with a brilliant level of fish life. This site is a little farther offshore and more often visited by Scubalife trips departing from their original base at The Yacht Club.
Fifi Humps (5m approx):
As the name suggests, both sites are very close together and the adventurous (or very fast finners) can visit both sites on the same dive – great for if you’ve already dived Fifi Wreck more than a few times! Fifi Humps is a series of humps made of rock on the seabed that have had different biological accretions layered over them over the passage of time. Well worth a visit, and even if you miss the humps themselves, there’s a reasonable about of fish-life in the area to enjoy while searching.
Black Rock (5m approx):
Relatively new to us, so forgive any errors. This is a favourite too, a single circular-almost rocky outcropping which can be circumnavigated in about 8-10 minutes or slow swimming. The pleasure of this site is the amount of fish life, which in our experience has been brilliant. There’s also plenty of nooks and crannies for macro-fanatics to enjoy, and a great way to extend the swim round from the likes of 10 to 20 minutes. After exploring the outside of the outcrop, there’s just as much life on top, at about 4 metres of depth.
Crescent Reef (18m-7m approx, subject to low vis and at times currents):
A more challenging dive, on a rocky outcropping that is in the shape of the crescent moon. The feature lies at the top of a ledge which rises from the seafloor(18m/21m at high tide). The best way to enjoy the site is to drop onto it somewhere in the middle and swim either left or right to the end before heading back to explore the other side – it comes to a natural end after about 20 minutes swimming, but has more than enough to enjoy for a whole dive. There is excellent fish life on this site, along with plenty of larger nooks and crannies to catch glimpses of some of the shyer fish.
I personally enjoy, particularly when teaching Padi Advanced Open Water, taking my divers down the ledge to it’s bottom before coming back up to enjoy the reef.
Cut Wreck (6m – 3m approx):
A 60-100ft approx ship which ran aground atop the reef and has since been “salvaged by hand” over the intervening years. What is left is a fascinating site (though NOT recommended for enjoyment in the height of summer) in which you can enjoy the sub-surface super-structure of the vessel, or enter to explore the cargo holds and engine room (both of which have had flooring/roofing removed during salvage). The vessel sits in the middle of a shallow reef which in itself is an enjoyable dive. Throughout the wreck-penetration section of the dive, admiring the underwater features vs. the flocks of resident birds on the surface is always a challenging division of time.
Sestan Wreck (11m – 13m approx):
A wreck with a history, and, frankly we had an adventure just finding it. Sestan Wreck sank due to an explosion while offloading combustible substances in the mid-1900s with the sad death of a number of her crew and an audible shockwave which is said to have been heard from the embassies in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. A spectacular wreck segmented into several sections ranging from smaller pieces up to the still-intact bow(we believe). As she has now been submerged for nearly 60 years there is considerable marine growth and fish-life to make this a very enjoyable, though lower visibility dive. Sestan Wreck is located just off the Hidd/Juffair combined coastline, with a buoy to mark her location – though beware, the buoy is not anchored onto the wreck itself and some navigation and/or search patterns may be needed before starting your dive.
Twin Bridge Wreck (less than 12m):
A newly discovered/re-discovered wreck dive of two bulk-carrying barges which appear to have sunk after colliding with each other. These barges lie next to each other creating a “trough” which can be swam down to the end point where the two barges make contact and the damage which caused their sinking is evident. Around the two wrecks there are plenty of nooks and crannies to explore including several small swim-throughs.
Bowl Wreck (less than 12m):
Along with Twin Bridge Wreck, this is another recently discovered/re-discovered wreck which appears to have once been a dredger (suction hopper?). The wreck itself sank intact and remains in great condition though clearly sinking last century at the earliest. The large space in the center of the dredger where sand was once loaded remains unobstructed or covered and presents an enjoyable swim (while not over-head) through the center of the wreck. After exploring the top and middle of the ship, the outer hull provides a large amount of fish life with a large bow-structure providing frustrated videographers a beautiful area to practice their craft with it’s height of easily more than 4m from seabed to prow combined with great fish-life throughout.
The Unknown Site (20m):
Providing quite a surprise in depth and quality, again two bulk carrying barges which appeared to have collided and sank with approximately 8 meters of space between them and forming an “L” shape, bow to forward-starboard side. While low visibility on the day we dived this beautiful site we enjoyed a pleasant amount of fish life plus several juvenile Hammours (grouper) and of course, great depth only a short distance from shore – less than 13 miles.
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Learn about Bahrain’s spectacular off-shore sites
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