It’s brand new and it’s in huge demand. Exclusive to Barefoot Scuba, dive expedition trips to Invisible Banks is now possible as a day trip. Frequented by liveaboards from Thailand, trips to the amazing Invisible Banks have not been possible earlier due to the slower traditional boats used for diving in and around Havelock.

In our endeavour to bring you something new and exciting every year, we specially charter speed boats for this trip to showcase the best that the diving in the Emerald Isles has to offer.

I’ve been lazy with my writing and a bit busy to post earlier, but these trips were introduced in December 2009 and by Jan 2010 had become a popular choice for those diver seeking to explore beyond Ritchie’s Archipelago.

fantastic Visibility at Invisible Banks

Also known as Flat rock, the site is a submerged rocky promontory with the most amazing visibility you can imagine .Its turquoise crystal clear water (over 30 m visibility) and phenomenal diving are absolutely alluring and the fact that you probably will not find another dive boat there when you visit is a big bonus. The topography on Flat Rock is very dramatic, with scattered rocks over a sandy bottom, with the concentration of fish absolutely incredible. It’s a  big flat rock sticking out of the sea, surrounded by 8+ meters of water,. rocky canyons and little coral. We had hear reports of nurse sharks here and as we don not generally see nurse sharks on our dives in and around Havelock, we were very keen to find them.

I had the pleasure of diving here in February this year and believe me when I say that I was simply blown away. Invisible banks didn’t give us a minute to show us how fantastic it could be. We had barely descended and reached about 8m, when out of blue came swimming an incredibly agile 2.5 m Lemon Shark. I was smiling ear to ear at this unexpected welcome. It was the perfect way to begin an adventure of a lifetime.

Kamlesh diving Invisible Banks

Having never seen a Lemon Shark before I was of course thrilled to bits. Its stocky yellowish brown body with 2 remoras (sucker fish looking for a free ride) stuck on it and powerful dorsal fin in action, he swam right past us almost oblivious to our presence.

A taste simply was not enough, we needed more. Right through the fairly easy shallow dives, we had a lovely drift that carried us through as we swam past some of largest great barracudas I have seen and  schools of Black Unicorn Fish, Surgeon Fish, Mackerel, Tuna, Trevally, Blue Fin Trevally and octopus. I also was a spectator to an unusual site. As we drifted along, we say hundreds and hundreds of the same species of Snappers moving like a team in the same direction. They were countless number of them swimming fast and towards the same goal. We never did find out where they were headed but never have I seen the sheer numbers of the same species as I did that day.

What mesmerized us more was the topography of it all. It was almost like the surface of the moon in a way. The visibility was so good that you could see a long way and everywhere you saw where huge rocks, long wall like ridges, outcrops and rocky canyons. Closer to the actual Flat rock, although we did experience a bit of surge the rock formations were more beautiful and the fish were in higher concentration here.

Over the next 2 dives we continued our search for the elusive Nurse Sharks we had heard so much about. Luck didn’t seem to be on our side on this matter and he continued to evade us. We did however see 2 Black tip reef shark, a White tip reef shark and a Grey reef shark too. This of course, in addition to the star of the day the Lemon Shark and all the other hundreds of fish.

With time running out on our last dive, we were coming to terms with the fact that perhaps we would have to make another trip to find them. Believe it or not in the last 10 minutes of our dive, Kamlesh (our boat boy and Advanced diver) was signalling like crazy and asking us to head in his direction. It was a remarkable find!

Under the ledge lay a incredible 3 m long Nurse Shark. Although they look fairly aggressive, Nurse Sharks are known to docile and this one was beauty! He was definitely disturbed by our presence and at the fact that we had discovered his hiding spot. He however didn’t swim away and let us stay as long as we could to admire him.

Through the 3 dives we did here on this remarkable day, we saw a total of 5 sharks and the brilliance of it was that 4 of them were all different species. Kamlesh beamed with pride at his find and overjoyed we all headed back to the dive centre excited and full of stories to share.