Depth
12–21 m
Level
Advanced
Visibility
10–18 m
Boat
35 min
Current
Moderate current
Water
27–30°C
Beneath the Koneswaram temple cliff — the rock the pillars were thrown from.
Twenty-one metres under the headland that carries Koneswaram temple. Portuguese soldiers pushed the original temple over this cliff in 1624 and pieces of it are still on the bottom. Reef fish, moray eels, rays on the sand. Diving directly below one of the oldest Hindu sites in the country is not a normal reef dive.
When this site dives
Open through the Yala monsoon, when the southwest is unworkable. Closed November to April under the Maha monsoon.
Also out of Nilaveli
nilaveli
Pigeon Island
10m
A staghorn coral plateau in three to ten metres of sunlit water, inside a national park.
nilaveli
Shark Point Reef
8m
Resident blacktip reef sharks, in water shallow enough to snorkel.
nilaveli
Coral Bay
13m
Hard and soft coral garden with turtles working the shallows and rays on the sand.