Scuba Diving In Andaman 2026: Cost, PADI Courses & 15 Best Dive Sites

Your dive base decides which sites you can reach, so pick it before you book flights. All three islands run reputable operators, but they serve different divers.

Havelock (Swaraj Dweep) is the answer for most people. It has the widest choice of dive centres, all the PADI courses, and exclusive access to the marquee offshore sites like Johnny’s Gorge and Dickson’s Pinnacle. Reach it by government or private ferry from Port Blair, a ride of roughly three to four hours depending on the boat. Book the ferry in advance in peak season, because the fast catamarans sell out.

Neil Island (Shaheed Dweep) sits about an hour beyond Havelock and suits divers who prefer shallow coral gardens, calmer conditions and a quieter island. Many travellers now dive a day or two at each, hopping Havelock to Neil by the inter-island ferry.

Port Blair is where you land, and it works as a dive base only if your trip is short. A day-trip Discover Scuba Dive at Snake Island off North Bay lets you dive without committing the time to reach Havelock, which is handy on a two or three day visit.

A practical rule of thumb: for a first taste dive, anywhere works. For a certification course or the famous advanced sites, base yourself on Havelock and give it at least three full days.

The single most common mistake is booking the wrong thing. A total first-timer does not need a course, and a certified diver should not waste money on a guided taste dive. Match yourself to one row below.

Read it like this. If you have never breathed underwater and you are on a short trip, book a Discover Scuba Dive and enjoy it with zero pressure. If Andaman is the start of a diving habit, spend the three days on an Open Water course instead, because the same money that buys two or three guided dives buys you a licence you can use in Thailand, the Maldives or the Red Sea for the rest of your life. Already certified? Skip straight to fun dives at the advanced sites, where your card actually pays off.

Booking is simple if you do it in the right order. Follow these six steps and you will not get stuck paying tourist-trap rates at the jetty.

1. Pick your experience first. Decide between a Discover Scuba Dive, a certification course, or fun dives, using the table above. This drives everything else.
2. Choose your base. Havelock for the famous sites and courses, Neil for gentle reefs, Port Blair if your trip is short and you only have a day.
3. Travel in the right season. Aim for October to May. If you are locked into the monsoon, keep plans flexible because boat dives get cancelled in rough water.
4. Reserve ahead in peak months. For November to February, book your dive or course before you land. Popular Havelock shops sell out their morning boats a day or two in advance.
5. Clear the medical and briefing. Fill in the fitness declaration, flag any heart, lung, ear or pregnancy issues honestly, and complete the pool or shallow-water briefing before you go deep.
6. Dive, log it, and plan the next step. Keep at least 18 to 24 hours between your last dive and any flight. If you loved it, ask about rolling your DSD credit into an Open Water course.

The Andaman Sea is warm all year, sitting around 27 to 30 degrees, so cold is never the issue. Visibility and sea state are. The window that matters runs October to May, and it splits into two moods.

November to February is the sweet spot: flat seas, the clearest water of the year and the highest odds of the offshore sites running. March to May stays excellent and quieter, with slightly warmer water. October is a genuine shoulder gamble as the monsoon pulls out, so keep a spare day in the plan. Through the June to September monsoon, expect rough seas, thinner visibility and frequently cancelled boat dives; a few sheltered shore sites near Havelock may still run, but do not build a trip around diving in those months.

Month by month, it breaks down like this. November and December bring the freshest post-monsoon water and reliable offshore access, though the seas can still have the odd swell early in November. January and February are peak dive season, with the flattest conditions, the best 25 to 30 metre visibility and the busiest dive shops, so this is the window to book ahead. March and April warm up and thin out the crowds while conditions stay excellent, which many regulars consider the best value time to go. May is the last comfortable month before the monsoon builds. If you are chasing the advanced Johnny’s Gorge and Dickson’s Pinnacle sites specifically, weight your trip toward December to March, when the offshore boats run most consistently.

Scuba diving in Andaman is safe when you dive with a certified operator and answer the medical questions truthfully. Reef operators here run PADI or SSI standards, brief you thoroughly, and keep a guide within arm’s reach on every Discover Scuba Dive. The rules below are the ones that actually keep you well.

• Age. Discover Scuba Dive suits roughly ages 10 to 60. Children need a parent’s consent and a calm temperament in the water.
• Swimming. Non-swimmers can do a guided DSD, because your instructor controls buoyancy and depth throughout. Certification courses do need basic water comfort and a short swim and float test.
• Medical fitness. Operators usually ask divers over about 45 for a fitness declaration. Declare any heart, lung, sinus or ear condition, recent surgery, or asthma before you sign up, not after.
• Pregnancy. Diving is not advised during pregnancy. If you are pregnant or think you might be, sit this one out and snorkel instead.
• Flying after diving. Leave 18 to 24 hours between your final dive and any flight to avoid decompression illness. Plan your last dive day accordingly, especially before an early Port Blair departure.
• Ears and colds. If you cannot equalise, you do not descend. A blocked nose or a heavy cold is a valid reason to postpone a dive without losing face.
• Equalising technique. Gently pinch your nose and blow, or swallow and wiggle your jaw, every metre as you go down, before you feel pressure rather than after. Descend slowly and feet-first, and never force it. Ear barotrauma is the single most common minor dive injury, and it is almost entirely preventable by equalising early and often.
• Alcohol and rest. Do not dive with a hangover or on very little sleep. Dehydration raises decompression risk, so skip the heavy drinking the night before and drink plenty of water on dive day.
• Know the warning signs. Decompression illness is rare on guided shallow dives but worth recognising: unusual fatigue, joint pain, dizziness, tingling or a skin rash in the hours after a dive all warrant telling your operator immediately. Port Blair has the nearest recompression facility, another reason to dive well within guided limits.
• Travel and dive insurance. Standard travel insurance often excludes scuba, so if you dive regularly consider a policy that covers diving and, ideally, evacuation. It is cheap peace of mind on remote islands.

The dive centre provides the technical gear, so you travel light. What you bring is comfort and after-dive kit.

What the operator provides

Mask, snorkel, fins, wetsuit, BCD, regulator, weights and tank all come with your dive or course. On a DSD, the instructor also carries a spare air source and manages your weighting, so you arrive with nothing but yourself.

What to bring yourself

• Swimwear worn under your clothes, plus a quick-dry towel
• Reef-safe sunscreen, because standard sunscreen damages the coral you came to see
• A light windcheater for the boat ride back, which can feel cold when you are wet
• Motion-sickness tablets if you get seasick, taken before you board the boat
• An underwater camera or a clip mount, though many shops sell dive photos and video as an add-on
• Cash for the dive shop and the ferry and permit counters, as card machines and networks on the islands can be patchy
• Any prescription details if you dive with contact lenses or need a prescription mask

Andaman’s reefs are part of the Andaman Sea coral triangle fringe, and the biodiversity shows the moment you drop below the surface. What you meet depends on the site and your depth, but the cast is reliably rich.

On the shallow beginner reefs like Nemo Reef, the Aquarium and Mac Point, expect clouds of reef fish in every colour the crayon box has: parrotfish crunching coral, angelfish and butterflyfish drifting in pairs, sergeant majors, snappers and the clownfish that give Nemo Reef its name. Hard-coral gardens, brain corals and staghorn thickets carpet the bottom, and it is common to share the water with green and hawksbill turtles grazing without a care.

On the walls and boulder sites like The Wall and Whitehouse Rock, the scenery shifts to soft coral, sea fans, feather stars and the crevices where moray eels, groupers and lobster hide. Look into the blue and you may catch fusilier schools being harried by trevally.

On the advanced offshore sites like Johnny’s Gorge, Dickson’s Pinnacle and Jackson’s Bar, the big animals arrive: reef sharks, stingrays and blue-spotted rays, giant groupers the size of a suitcase, barracuda walls, tuna and, on a lucky day, an eagle ray or a manta passing through. Barren Island adds the strangeness of coral growing on black volcanic sand.

Two things worth remembering. First, this is a living reef, so touching coral, chasing turtles or feeding fish damages the very thing you paid to see; keep your hands to yourself and your fins off the bottom. Second, macro-lovers should slow down on the shallow sites, where nudibranchs, shrimp, pipefish and seahorses reward anyone who stops rushing.

If a full dive feels like too much, or a member of your group cannot dive for medical reasons, Andaman’s snorkelling is genuinely world-class and far cheaper. Elephant Beach on Havelock and the reefs off Neil put vivid coral and turtles within a mask-and-snorkel of the surface, no certification and no tank required. Many travellers do both: a Discover Scuba Dive for the diver, snorkelling for everyone else. Our guide to snorkelling in Andaman covers the best spots and prices in detail. Snorkelling is also the sensible choice if you are pregnant, have an ear or sinus issue, or simply want the reef without the depth.

Your instructor matters more than your dive site. Andaman has excellent centres and a few that cut corners, so a little care up front keeps a safe sport safe.

• Check the certification agency. Reputable centres teach to PADI or SSI standards and can show current instructor certifications. If a shop is vague about which agency it works under, walk on.
• Ask the diver-to-guide ratio. On a Discover Scuba Dive you want a low ratio, ideally one instructor to one or two guests, so someone always has eyes on you. Crowded, six-to-one taste dives are where problems start.
• Look at the gear. Serviced regulators, working gauges, well-kept BCDs and a stocked oxygen kit on the boat are all signs of a centre that takes safety seriously.
• Expect a real briefing. A good operator walks you through equalising, breathing, hand signals and what to do if your mask floods, before you get in the water. A rushed, skip-the-briefing dive is a red flag.
• Read recent reviews. Look for divers who mention the same instructor by name and praise the safety brief, not just the photos. Consistency over time beats a single glowing rating.

Booking through a vetted trip is one way to skip the guesswork, because the operators are checked in advance and the dives, transfers and stay are lined up so nothing falls apart on the day.

If you have never dived, the fear of the unknown is usually worse than the dive. Here is what a Discover Scuba Dive in Havelock actually feels like, start to finish, so you arrive knowing what to expect.

The briefing. You meet your instructor on the beach or the boat and run through the basics on land: how to breathe slowly through the regulator, how to clear water from your mask, how to equalise your ears, and the few hand signals that matter. It takes 15 to 20 minutes and it is calmer than it sounds.

The shallows. You wade or descend into chest-deep water and practise breathing underwater for the first time, plus one or two skills, until it feels normal. Most people’s nerves melt here, the moment they realise the regulator just works.

The descent. Holding your instructor’s hand or a guide line, you go down slowly, equalising your ears every metre or so. If your ears hurt, you stop and signal, and you never push past a block. Reaching the reef at 8 to 12 metres, with fish all around, is the moment people remember for years.

The dive. You glide over the reef for 20 to 40 minutes while your instructor manages your buoyancy and points out turtles, clownfish and coral. There is nothing to do but breathe slowly and look. Underwater photos, if you booked them, get taken here.

The ascent and after. You come up slowly, climb out, and spend the boat ride back grinning. Give yourself a rest, rehydrate, and do not book a flight for at least 18 to 24 hours. Many people finish their first dive already asking about the Open Water course.

A little logistics planning makes the diving part effortless. Here is the practical frame most divers work to.

How many days. For a single taste dive folded into a beach holiday, one dive day is enough. For a PADI Open Water course, block at least three clear dive days plus a buffer, and remember the 18 to 24 hour no-fly gap after your last dive, so plan a non-diving final day before you fly home. A relaxed dive-focused trip is five to seven days on the islands.

Getting there. You fly into Veer Savarkar International Airport in Port Blair, the only airport, with direct flights from Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. From Port Blair, ferries run to Havelock and Neil; book the fast private catamarans in advance during peak season because they fill up. Inter-island ferries connect Havelock and Neil directly if you want to dive both.

Permits. Indian nationals do not need a permit for the main tourist islands including Port Blair, Havelock and Neil. Foreign nationals no longer need the old Restricted Area Permit for these islands, though rules can change, so check the current position before you travel. Some outer islands and marine parks charge separate entry or activity fees.

Where to stay. Havelock has the widest choice, from backpacker huts near the dive shops to beach resorts on Radhanagar. Staying close to your dive centre saves early-morning transfers. To build the whole trip, dives, stays, ferries and transfers in one place, our Andaman scuba diving packages bundle the dives with a vetted operator, and the wider Andaman travel guide covers ferries, islands and seasons across the whole trip.

Andaman is the easiest place in India to fall for diving. You can breathe underwater for the first time at Nemo Reef for the price of a nice dinner, or walk away three days later with a PADI licence and a plan to dive the world. Pick your experience, go between October and May, and dive with a certified operator, and the rest takes care of itself. When you are ready to line up the dives, transfers and stay in one place, browse our Andaman scuba diving packages, or start with the wider Andaman travel guide to build the trip around your dives.