Diving in Saipan

This article is intended to provide the already qualified Scuba diver with information which will help to plan dives in the waters of Saipan, whether as a local resident or a visitor. Information is provided without prejudice, and is not guaranteed accurate or complete. Use it at your own risk.

Understand

Located at latitude of 15.25° north and longitude of 145.75° east, about 200 km (120 mi) north of Guam, Saipan is about 20 km (12.5 mi) long and 9 km (5.5 mi) wide. The island is a popular dive destination in the Pacific, attracting a large number of "introductory", beginner, and advanced divers from Japan, Korea, America and elsewhere. Its underwater beauty and appeal to divers is greater than Hawaii's and Guam's, but less than Palau's or Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

General topography

The island is a typical middle-aged island composed of ancient fossil-rich coral limestone atop a subsiding, extinct marine volcano. A fringing reef of healthy offshore corals forming an extremely large lagoon and many small shallow lagoons in its larger bays, as well as a few offshore subsurface coral mounts.

Climate, weather and sea conditions

Visibility, typically in the 50~90ft./16~30m range, varies enormously based on location, tide, and season.

Wave conditions are ideal, seldom rising above 1~2ft. / 30~60cm in height, except during typhoons and tropical storms.

Divers should consult weather reports for the region before traveling to Saipan during the typhoon season (Autumn), as the frequent typhoons and tropical storms can cause travel delays and undivable water conditions for several days at a time.

Marine ecology

Saipan's excellent reefs, white beaches, clownfish colonies, underwater caves, WWII shipwrecks, underwater WWII munitions dumps, and underwater WWII plane wreck offer diving that appeals to almost every type of diver.

Get help

Emergency services

• . Police. 
• . Ambulance service 
• . Sea rescue 
• . Recompression chamber 
• . DAN hotline 

Get service

See

The following are some of the named dive sites in Saipan:

The Grotto

Understand:

This dive site in is sure to amaze you. After a giant stride into the water from a rock in the cavern, divers can take three different exit holes out to open ocean. Once outside, there are beautiful walls, swim-throughs, and caves to explore. Turtles and Clown Triggerfish are some of the many types of sea life to be seen at this magnificent dive site. Several resident White Tip Sharks lounge on the bottom during the day.

This site is one of the four divesites most frequently visited by professional dive shops on Saipan. Because of its difficulty, it is typically used only for divers who have already been certified, though on rare rough-weather occasions when all other sites are undivable, open water students and even introductory divers are brought here.

Topography: — The Grotto is possibly the most popular and most challenging dive in Saipan. It is a natural tunnel leading from the top of a high cliff down below sea level, then exiting into open ocean through three wide openings at depths between 0~60ft./0~18m. Outside the openings, the cliff descends far beyond the depths of recreational diving, but allows for easy drift-diving along the cliff wall. To the left (southwest) of the openings, along the cliff face at 40~50ft. deep is a large divable underwater cavern known informally as "the batcave". (Divers should not attempt to reach the batcave without a local guide, and only if their air consumption rate is quite slow.)

Conditions: — Visibility here is quite possibly the best Saipan has to offer, typically exceeding 90ft./30m.

Get in

Shore dive — Access is via a well-paved asphalt road from San Roque to a parking lot atop the cliff, then down 112 cement steps to a sunlit large natural rock in the cave lagoon. From this rock divers make a giant-stride entry into 15ft./5m of water and hold onto a mooring buoy until all the members of their group are in the water.

Exit is also via this rock, and accomplished by holding onto the mooring buoy rope while swinging onto a sea-level ledge on the entry/exit rock.

See

Marine life: — Typical natural life in and around the Grotto includes 1~3 harmless white-tip reef sharks, bubble coral and lace coral (in the batcave), a small group of barracuda, and pyramid butterfly fish. Occasional fauna include green sea turtles, Napoleon wrasses, tuna, and spotted eagle rays.

Coral growth is slight.

Stay safe

Hazards: — Because of the physically demanding 112-step staircase, beach divers visiting this site should be in good physical condition. There are occasional boat-dives outside the Grotto, but distance from the harbor and the ease of beach entry make this an uncommon boat dive.

Snorkelers and swimmers should avoid exiting the Grotto even under the calmest conditions, since exiting at or near the surface is sometimes easy but reentry can often be impossible because of strong currents, whitewater waves crashing against the cliff, and extremely sharp rocks. Once outside the Grotto, the nearest surface-exit points are the far-away Bird Island to the northeast and equally distant Wing Beach to the southwest. It's therefore imperative that divers retain enough air to return underwater and make their safety-stop within the Grotto.

Wing Beach

Understand:

Wing beach is the beach/boat dive closest to The Grotto. Access is via a very poor dirt road, then to a small jungle clearing near the far northeast side of Wing Beach. From there, beach divers walk across a white pebble beach and follow the northeast rocky wall of the beach down a flat rocky slope, then follow the underwater wall around further to the northeast. Exit is by the same route. This site is not commonly visited by professional dive shops.

Position — Wing Beach is located on the northwest part of the island.

Topography: — There are some great geographical features here, such as large crevices and breathtaking drop-offs. Rock formations include a 30m/90ft. tower and equally deep canyon in the underwater wall.

Conditions: — excellent visibility

Get in

Boat or shore dive: — A fantastic dive that can be done from the beach or a boat. A drift dive from a boat is the best way to do this dive.

See

Marine life: — The site has poor-to-moderate coral growth. Common sights there are coral-eating pincushion starfish, somewhat poisonous coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish, and butterfly fish. This site is well known for shark encounters and Spanish Dancers at night

Tanapag

Understand:

This shallow introductory beachdive site should not be confused with the Saipan boat harbor of the same name. The two locations are separate, with extremely different beach and water conditions.

Tanapag is possibly the easiest, most convenient, safest introductory dive site on Saipan.

Controversially, professional dive leaders will often bring canned and plastic-wrapped hot dogs underwater so that customers can enjoy feeding the fish, who will flock around the diver in large numbers. While this is undoubtedly thrilling for the diver, the unnatural food source leads to health problems for the fishes and the cans/wrapping are often abandoned underwater, polluting the area.

Depth: — 0~15ft./5m

Conditions: — Moderate 30ft./10m visibility. Although occasionally strong longshore currents inside the lagoon may reduce visibility to near-zero and require that divers cling to a submerged, anchored rope "walkway" along the dive's route, typically the conditions are near-ideal, with near-zero currents.

Get in

Shore dive — Access is via a well-paved asphalt road very close to Garapan City and San Roque, then parking next to a small church and an open-air public theater. From there, divers typically sit around the edges of the theater on low walls, listening to dive instructions and arranging their gear. Next, divers enter the water via an extremely gently sloping sand beach and practice their dive-training in water where they can stand up. Then the divers proceed into deeper water along a submerged anchored rope.

See

Marine life: — small coral outcroppings surrounded by small reef fishes, sea cucumbers, small boxfish, clownfish, pufferfish, and occasional scorpionfish.

Photography: — This is an ideal site for using an inexpensive snorkeling camera without flash to take underwater photos, since the area is well lit and depths are within snorkeling-camera depths.

The Korean/Japanese Troop Ship

Understand:

This World War Two troop ship was owned by the Japanese, but sank while carrying conscripted Korean soldiers. It is a rare type of shipwreck since it is in shallow water and contains almost no overhead environment, making it a very simple, safe dive.

Controversially, in the mid-1990s Korean divers placed a memorial plaque on the wreck and a large stone memorial within a few yards of the wreck. The plaque, it's said, mourned the death of the Korean soldiers but made no mention of the other war casualties. This caused a minor uproar in the multinational professional dive community of Saipan.

Position — The wreck is located in the large lagoon outside Garapan/Tanapag.

Depth: — 30~40ft./10~13m

Conditions: — Occasional strong currents may make diving difficult and visibility poor, but conditions there are typically 50ft./17m visibility and zero current, with a white sandy bottom and no surface wave activity.

Get in

It is strictly a boat dive, being too far from shore for a beach entry.

See

Marine life: — The area has moderate coral growth, limiting the types of fish that gather at the wreck. Divers should not be surprised, however, to find small 3ft(1m) whitetip sharks occasionally napping in and around the wreck.

Ice Cream

Understand:

Ice Cream is outside the lagoon, slightly south of Garapan on the west side of Saipan . It is a very large submerged coral mound of staghorn corals rising from a bottom at about 50 ft to a baseball-diamond-sized summit roughly 40ft(16m) below the surface.

Conditions: — Visibility is typically 20m/60ft, and currents are rarely problematic, though divers should take care to cling to the anchor rope while descending, ascending, and making safety stops.

Get in

Boat dive. There are several permanent boat moorings.

See

Marine life: — includes large populations of moorish idols and butterfly fish, particularly pyramid butterfly fish. Also to be seen are eels and octopus, and it is not uncommon for a couple of Eagle Rays to visit the site.

Obyan Beach

Understand:

Pronounced "ob-ZAHN". This beach is particularly well used by professional dive shops, both for easy "fun dives" and for open water training dives. Occasionally, dive boats will moor and dive here and also visit the nearby site called "Mushroom rock/Boyscout beach/Secret beach".

Position — Located near Naftan Point.

Depth: — 15ft(5m)to 60'(18m)

Conditions: — Visibility generally varies from 30ft(10m)~60ft(18m). On a good day, there may be 150 + feet of visibility.

Get in

(Boat or shore dive)— The dive site is near the airport, and accessed via a poorly maintained pothole-ridden asphalt road and a dirt/coral-rubble road. Access and exit are typically from the beach along a rope anchored inside a natural cut in the coral plateau near the beach.

See

Marine life: — After entering through the first reef, there is a beautiful patch reef with hundreds of small fish and some interesting animals to see. The second reef starts at about 50 feet where one finds Barracuda, sharks, and garden eels. There is also good hard coral growth, large colonies of soft coral, a large variety of reef fishes, and occasional green sea turtles.

Stay safe

Hazards: — World War II history enthusiasts will note a Japanese pillbox near the parking lot. As with much of Saipan's beaches, shallow waters, and jungles, Obyan's underwater sandy regions and the nearby jungle area still give up occasional artillery fired from American warships and from the pillbox. If you see one, do not touch it, as roughly a third of the undetonated armaments are still capable of explosive reactions to mishandling.

Snorkelers should be cautioned to stay in the yard-deep lagoon inside the wave-break zone, because although moving out into deeper water through the coral cuts is easy at the surface, return is not — the waves break in extremely shallow sharp corals, and the coral cuts experience strong outgoing rip-tides.

Skills: — This dive site is ideal for all skill levels, especially people interested in photography.

Lau Lau Beach

Understand:

This is one of Saipan's most frequently visited sites, and is an ideal dive site for beginners or people interested in smaller, more colorful animals.

Topography: — one of the largest reefs on the island

Get in

Shore dive — easy beach entry

See

Marine life: — Wrasses, butterfly fish, surgeons, Big eye skad, snappers, and more. For the diver that likes to go slow, you will also have frequent encounters with nudibranchs, scorpionfish, and octopus.

Secret Beach / Boyscout Beach / Mushroom Rock

Understand:

Boyscout 1 & 2 - Both Boyscout beaches are rarely visited by divers or anybody else for that matter, because they are hard to get to. Divers who take the trouble are rewarded with beautiful coral and white sand.

Get in

Boat or shore dive

See

Marine life: — Some of the largest clams can be found here.

Suggested Routes: — On a calm day you can do a surface swim from the second beach to Naftan and dive all the way back to the beach.

WW2 Plane Wreck

Understand:

B-29/Emily - Okay, so the wreck is not a B-29 the name led you to believe, but that of a Japanese H8K or Type 2 Large Flying Boat. The Allied reporting name for this type of plane was Emily. The Emily was an Imperial Japanese Navy Flying boat used during World War II for maritime patrol duties.

Depth: — At 30 ft of depth this is an easy and relaxing dive.

Topography: — The 4 large props are still intact as is most of the wing. The gun turret can been seen off the side. A chair and control panel lie close by.

Get in

Boat dive

Eagle Ray City

Understand:

Eagle Ray City is one of the most unique dives in Saipan. Rising out of the sand at a depth 30 feet is a rocky formation that on a good day will have up to 40 Eagle Rays hanging out. While divers hold on to the rock Eagle Rays glide overhead.

Depth: — 30 feet

Topography: — Rocky reef on sand

Get in

Boat dive

See

Marine life: — Eagle rays

Dimple

Understand:

Suitable for all skill levels

Depth: — 40 to 130 feet

Topography: — a seamount on the Western side of Saipan.

Get in

Boat dive

See

Marine life: — Red Snappers, butterfly fish. Eagle rays, eels, and Surgeons are also seen often.

Naftan

Understand:

One of the best wall dives in the CNMI, with amazing visibility and fish life

Position — located on the southern tip of the island

Depth: — The top of the wall starts at 45 feet and goes down to over 130 feet

Topography: — Wall dive

Conditions: — Visibility usually good

Get in

(Boat dive)

See

Marine life: — On the top portion, there are some great coral formations that are home to huge clams among other things. As one starts to descend on the wall, you will find magnificent fan coral and colorful animal life. Since this dive is at the edge of the abyss there is always the possibility of running into the larger fish like Napoleon wrasses and sharks.

Chinsen Maru

Understand:

Chinsen Maru is a large Japanese freighter that lies at 30 foot of depth in the lagoon. The ship has been in the water for over 50 years, allowing for some significant coral growth as well as becoming a home to thousands of fish.

Depth: — 30ft (9m)

Get in

Boat dive

See

Marine life: — There are monstrous Red Snappers as well as Big Eye Emperors patrolling the wreck while huge schools of Goat Fish swim on top. The wreck is probably the best place on island to find Stonefish. To top it off a resident White Tip rests underneath the wreck.

Banzai Cliff

Understand:

There is only a brief time during the year when conditions are suitable for diving, but it is well worth the wait if you like the big blue dives.

Topography: — beautiful wall

Get in

(Boat dive)

See

Marine life: — Large pelagic fish such as sharks, rays, huge tuna, and dolphins are often seen. There are also amazing anemones and coral formations.

Stay safe

Hazards: — Currents

Skills: — This is an advanced dive due to the depths and currents.

Spot Light

Understand:

This cavern dive is named Spot Light because when the sun shines through a hole in the top of the cavern, it is like a spotlight shining on a stage.

Position — This dive site is very close to Banzai and as with Banzai only accessible during a brief time period.

Topography: — Cavern dive

Get in

Boat dive

See

Marine life: — There is always the possibility of seeing large fish and animals such as turtles and sharks. The cavern has some of the largest lionfish you will ever see.

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