San Salvador walls
DivingNo permitMooring buoys
Reef & coral · Also good for snorkeling & anchoring
- Best time
- Dec–May
- Water temp.
- 24–28 °C
- Dive depth
- 12–40 m
Wall diving as good as anywhere in the Caribbean, with 40m visibility over drop-offs that fall from 12m into a thousand metres of blue-black, huge black coral, tunnels and chimneys through the wall, hammerheads and reef sharks in winter. Almost nobody comes here. Widely accepted as Columbus's first landfall in the New World on 12 October 1492, there are four competing monuments on the island marking the spot, which tells you how settled the question is. The island's isolation 200nm from Nassau is why the reefs are pristine and the visitor count is tiny. Anchorage: Anchor off the west coast; Riding Rock marina is small. Hazards: Walls drop to abyssal depth right off the reef edge, strict depth discipline.



