What were Jacques Cousteau top ten dive sites in the world?
Jacques Cousteau was my idol as I was growing up. I loved watching his underwater programs that were filmed from his Calypso boat. This article explores the top ten dive sites in the world by Jacques Cousteau.
Top ten dive sites in the world by Jacques Cousteau include the following bucket list dive sites:
The best way to do more diving is to book yourself on a scuba diving liveaboard. You can check the latest and best deals on liveaboards using the following window:
Who is Jacques Cousteau?
For those that don’t know Jacques Cousteau, he was a famous underwater filmmaker. His full name was Jacques Yves Cousteau. Also, in the first image on this page Jacques Cousteau is the one dead centre, and to the right of President Kennedy (or on President Kennedy’s left shoulder).
Jacques Cousteau the father of scuba diving
Jacques Cousteau has been referred to as the ‘Father of Scuba Diving.’ He spent his life exploring the underwater world.
In the early 1940’s he also co-developed the aqua lung and was a marine conservation pioneer. Which means all modern day scuba divers have Jacques Cousteau to thank for what we have today.
He died back in June 1997, so many younger scuba divers wouldn’t necessarily know about him. But for those that remember his films and stories, he was a very much loved character. Although, Jacques Cousteau is not without his controversy.
1. Blue Hole, Belize
I’ve already written about scuba diving in Belize, which is where the Great Blue Hole is located.
This deep blue hole is most spectacular when viewed from above, as you’ll see from the above image. The Great Blue Hole was made famous by Jacques Cousteau. He brought his renowned research ship Calypso to investigate its depths back in 1972.
The following video, whilst long (i.e. 48.42 minutes), includes The Great Blue Hole, as filmed by Jacques Cousteau. You’ll get to hear the voice of the famous explorer Jacques Cousteau too. This brings back great memories for me.
Secrets of the Sunken Caves – The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau
The famous Great Blue Hole of Belize is a sight to be seen. It is worth the trip to Belize on its own and is on many a bucket-list of scuba divers. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Great Blue Hole lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef. This is a small atoll and is around 62 miles (100 KM) from the mainland. The Great Blue hole and Lighthouse Reef is part of the larger barrier reef, which also forms part of the World Heritage Site too.
The Blue Hole is over 124 metres deep (406 feet) and over 300 metres (1,000 feet) wide. The hole forms an almost perfect circle and its circumference is almost 1,000 metres (3,140 feet). This makes it the largest natural formation of its kind in the world. The depth of the water that surrounds The Great Blue Hole is at around 12 metres (40 feet). This makes it accessible to less experienced and beginner scuba divers too.
Belize dive liveaboards table
This list of Belize liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see below), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
The Scuba Diving Earth Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating) is explained on each liveaboard review when you click the “Discover Liveaboard” link, and is my own Liveaboard Luxury Rating I’ve assigned to all liveaboards. Choosing between liveaboards is helped by customer scores, and if you get stuck choosing between two or three liveaboards, where each one has a high customer score out of 10, you can use the SDE Luxury Rating to help narrow down your choice.
Think about it like using Booking.com when searching for the best hotel. Booking.com also use a customer score where each customer rates hotels out of 10. This is similar to the liveaboard customer rating, which is also rated out of 10. But let’s say you only like to stay in hotels rated 8 and above on Booking.com, but you also want the hotel to have WIFI or parking, or to have a swimming pool etc. The features each hotel has is usually secondary to the score out of 10.
Sea life around the Great Blue Hole
The sea life is more around the Great Blue Hole, rather than inside it. This includes the usual Caribbean sea creatures, and includes:
Various reef sharks, including grey, whitetip and blacktip reef sharks.
Explore and See The Bottom of The Mysterious Great Blue Hole of Belize an Abyss of Darkness Revealing Underwater Domain Secrets. “Explore and see the bottom of the Great Blue Hole of Belize with Ramon F Llaneza”. A technical diver diving rebreather explore stargates the entrances to alien underworlds in Belize and Bahamas. The Mysterious Belize Great Blue Hole is a large underwater hole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 100 kilometers (62 mi) from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is perfectly circular in shape, over 300 meters (1000 ft) across (diameter), 3140 feet circumference and 125 meters (410 feet) deep.
2. Cozumel, Mexico
Imagine crystal clear waters, an abundance of sea life and to top it off lovely warm waters too. I’ve just described the waters off Cozumel, which is a small island off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
Jacques Cousteau declared Cozumel the most spectacular diving site in the world in 1961, which is why it’s in the top ten dive sites in the world by Jacques Cousteau.
Now a Mecca for scuba diving vacations, where drift diving is common place. Cozumel is also renowned for its incredible snorkeling and scuba diving due to the sea’s remarkable clarity.
Regardless of whether you’re a certified scuba diver or a first-time snorkeler, the island is has accessible sites for all underwater exploration. You’ll find one of the world’s largest reef systems there.
As Cozumel is in the Caribbean Sea, the sea life there is of a tropical kind. This includes the usual corals and coral fish life. Examples of the creatures that live there include:
Grey, whitetip, blacktip reef sharks.
Nurse sharks.
Rays, including sting rays.
Turtles.
Lobsters and crabs
Giant moray eels.
Barracuda.
Grouper
An abundance of the usual corals and coral sea life including parrot fish, angel fish and trigger fish.
AMAZING DRIFT SCUBA DIVING COZUMEL MEXICO MAY 2016 Drift diving with Dive House from the Secrets Aura Resort in Cozumel, Mexico. Including the Devil’s Throat at Punta Sur. I have put more recent videos of Cozumel on my channel , Check out the 2019 video with the GoPro7!
3. Sipadan, Borneo Malaysia
Sipadan is most divers dream location. Back when Cousteau visited Sipadan and filmed there, it would have been completely untouched.
Although the waters are still crystal clear and full of life, there are many more divers visiting the region now. In fact Cousteau said, “I have seen other places like Sipadan 45 years ago, but now no more. Now we have found an untouched piece of art.”
Sipadan is located off Borneo’s east coast, which is to the east of the Malaysian peninsula. Borneo has many names, which include East Malaysia (Malaysia Timur), also known as Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan (Sabah, Sarawak dan Labuan) or Malaysian Borneo. It is the part of Malaysia and is the world’s third largest island.
Sipadan now claims to be the worlds best dive site. Some would agree with this, but others have their own favourites. The island of Sipadan is located in the Celebes Sea and is formed of living corals. These corals grew on top of an extinct volcano.
Sealife at Sipadan
Frequently seen in the waters around Sipadan include the following:
Green and hawksbill turtle, which mate and nest there.
Large schools of barracuda.
Large schools of big-eye trevally.
Bumphead parrotfish.
Pelagic fish species that include manta rays, eagle rays, scalloped hammerhead sharks.
Due to the large number of turtles in the region, there’s a tomb that contains many skeletal remains of these sea creatures. This turtle tomb lies underneath the column of the island, formed by an underwater limestone cave with a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers.
New Zealand is one of the most beautiful places in the world to visit. I’ve not yet scuba dived there, but I have visited both the north and south islands. Plus I’ve snorkeled there in a few locations.
The Poor Knight Islands are a nature reserve and are uninhabited. They are located off the northern part of the New Zealand’s north island. The reason why Cousteau would include these in his top 10 dive sites is the abundant sea life (see video below) and clear waters.
Beneath the waves at the Poor Knights Islands, an vast ocean of diving has been compressed into a relatively small area.
Sea life at the Poor Knights Islands New Zealand
Under the water you’ll find kelp forests on the upper reaches of the tumbling ‘giant staircase.’ You’ll also experience the dark waters of the islands’ many caves. The Poor Knights Islands offer an extraordinary variety of underwater experiences for scuba divers and for snorkelers alike.
This sea life a the Poor Knight Islands includes:
Rays.
Moray eels.
Sharks, which can be seen in the video I’ve included in this article.
You may also be lucky to see dolphins on the surface on your way to or back from the dive sites.
Numerous other sea life and corals, as show in the video.
The best way to dive the Poor Knight Islands is with Dive Tutukata, who are located in Tutukaka, New Zealand.
Diving Poor Knights HD My first dives in NZ. The Poor Knights! Awesome friends and dive buddies, awesome weather, super dives (with many sharks on one of the dives) and great dive shop.
5. Heron Island, Australia
Heron Island off the east coast of Australia is so good that Jacques Cousteau, probably the world’s most famous undersea explorer of our time, listed Heron Bommie as one of his top 10 favourite dive sites. It is also noted for the visible wreck HMAS Protector, as in the above image.
Australia is one of my favourite places on the planet to visit. Having lived in Perth for a while, I have a real affinity for the lifestyle and culture. But Heron Island is on the opposite coast to Perth.
Heron Island is a coral cay located near the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern Great Barrier Reef. It is 50 miles (80 kilometres) north-east of Gladstone, Queensland, Australia. The waters around Heron Island are mostly shallow and crystal clear, plus most importantly warm.
There’s a research station on Heron Island, which is featured in the video below. The island itself is only 800 metres long (2,600 feet) and 300 metres wide (980 feet).
Great Barrier Reef dive liveaboards table
This list of Australia Great Barrier Reef liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see above), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
Aliwal Shoal, South Africa was rated by Jacques Cousteau as one of the top 10 dive spots in the world. The abundance of sea life is what drew him there, and is now what modern day scuba divers love too. Especially the shark population.
The sea temperature during summer months averages a warm 24° C (75° F). In the winter the sea temperature doesn’t drop much below 19° C (66° F), as the Aliwal Shoal lies on the inner edge of the Mozambique current. This current is rich in nutrients, which results in the plethora of marine life there.
Aliwal Shoal is three miles (5 km) off the coast of the small KwaZulu-Natal town of Umkomaas. The Shoal itself is a rocky reef, which was named after the sailing vessel Aliwal. The Aliwal ship almost crashed on the rocks in 1849.
Scuba divers that frequent this dive say that the thrill of the rocky ride over the breakers to get there is second only to the dive itself.
Aliwal Shoal is a large rocky area in the middle of a vast sandy plain. There are many caves and rocky overheangs too, many of which are home to the ‘Raggies‘ or ragged tooth sharks.
Sea life at Aliwal Shoal
At the Aliwal Shoal you are likely to see 15 to 20 sharks at any one time. This is what attracts many of the a scuba divers here. You can also see:
Black tip reef sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks (Or Zambezis) and raggies or ragged tooth sharks (also known as grey nurse sharks) come to the area to mate.
Aliwal Shoal – Tiger Shark Dive!!! Baited shark dive, got up close with a 4m tiger shark. Awesome diving with Scuba Addicts. If you enjoy my scuba and safari videos please take a look at my NFT art or consider leaving me a tip, it would be much appreciated. Thank You.
7. Richelieu Rock, Thailand
Richelieu Rock is a horseshoe-shaped reef in the Andaman Sea about 125 miles (200 KM) north west of Phuket. Which is also about 50 miles (80 km) north west of Khao Lak off Thailand’s Phang Nga Province. Richelieu Rock was discovered by Jacques Cousteau, with the help of local fishermen.
There are strong currents in the area, see the end of the second video. This makes the dives a drift dive so more advanced and experienced divers tend to dive the region.
Thailand dive liveaboards table
This list of Thailand liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see above), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
[4K, Sony A7SII] Underwater | Richelieu Rock, Similan, Thailand Richelieu Rock – best dive spot in Thailand. March, 2017, Liveaboard trip to Similan national park, near Phuket, Thailand.
A second video of Richelieu Rock showing a whale shark:
But the Red Sea is not restricted to Egypt, as you can dive it further south off the coast of Sudan too. The benefit of the southern Red Sea is that it’s visited by less scuba divers. The reefs are more in tact and there’s more sea life, especially sharks.
Jacques Cousteau had a love of the Red Sea. He not only loved to scuba dive there, but he also discovered one of my favourite wrecks British Merchant Navy ship SS Thistlegorm. This ship was sunk in the Second World War in October 1941 near Ras Muhammad in the Red Sea.
Going back to Sha’b Rumi, Jacques Cousteau created an underwater home in 1963. The experiment was with six divers (or oceanauts) from his team and they lived for 30 days in a structure referred to as a garage. The experiment was named by Cousteau as Precontinent II.
The video below shows what this underwater structure looks like today, which has been colonised by corals and reef fish. There was a Precontinent I that preceded this experiment, as there was Precontinent III that followed it.
Precontinent II is just 10 metres (33 feet) below the surface of the Red Sea. It can be found in the lagoon, where the entrance to it was blasted by Cousteau himself. Which went against the grain a bit, being the conservationist he was. Leaving this rotting structure was also a bit controversial too, but now as it’s home to many Red Sea species, he can be forgiven for that.
An abundance of coral reefs and the usual fish life found around coral reef systems.
Red Sea dive liveaboards table
This list of Red Sea liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see above), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
Tidal currents amazing tidal currents in Seymore Straights (between Vancouver Island and Quadra Island) BC. When the tides come in and out they create powerful currents as they pass through this narrow channel.
Vancouver Island has over 17,000 miles of coast line. It’s known for tremendous tidal currents, whirl pools and back eddies, which can be seen in the video below. The currents are most spectacular as they force their way through between Vancouver Island and Quadra Island.
The currents run at around 14.5 knots (16.7 miles per hour or 26.9 kilometres per hour), way too fast for scuba diving. But the waters around this area can be dived during slack.
Sea life at Vancouver Island
The sea life around Vancouver Island is varied and numerous, and includes:
I remember missing out on this trip when the dive club I was a member of went. The ones that were lucky to go came back with grins from ear to ear. They said it was amazing. The sharks were almost uncountable, there were so many of them.
The abundant sea life there is as a result of the converging nutrient-rich currents from nearby deep water. This attracts a multitude of pelagic action to Cocos.
It’s easy to see why Jacques Cousteau loved this dive site and put it in his top 10 dives around the world. The island has around 20 dive sites, which are all in a compact location.
These range from shallow but steep vertical walls, drift diving, to deep pinnacles down to over 40 metres (130 feet), and blue water dives. Due to its location and because of the currents in the region, the diving is really only suited to the more advanced and experienced scuba divers.
The island was formed from ancient volcanic activity, where its only current inhabitants are park rangers, except of course for the wild life.
Costa Rica Cocos dive liveaboards table
This list of Costa Rica Cocos liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see above), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
Best Of Cocos Island Diving, Costa Rica The best of my first trip in Cocos Island, Costa Rica, in September
Have you been counting the dives sites I listed? Well even if you have there’s a sneaky 11th top dive site that Jacques Cousteau was famous for exploring.
Jacques Cousteau Truk Lagoon – Lagoon of Lost Ships
Jacques Cousteau filmed a documentary “Lagoon of Lost Ships” about the shipwrecks of Truk Lagoon in 1969. This being 25 years after Operation Hailstone attack by American Forces on the Japanese Naval fleet moored in Truk Lagoon.
When his documentary was first released it reveled new discoveries to the world. Many would say that it was Jacques Cousteau who inspired many divers to want to dive this amazing location for so many wrecks in one place.
The Cousteau diving of Truk Lagoon culminated with an eerie dive on one of the many wrecks. As they arrive on this wreck they find anti-aircraft guns still pointing to the sky, showing that the Japanese sailors were fighting up to the minute this ship sank back in 1944.
They proceed to the hold at 85 metres (280 feet), where they record spectacular footage of the remains of hundreds of soldiers who perished when this ship sank. To see footage of Philippe Cousteau, please take a look at this article ‘Truck Lagoon human remains.
Truk Lagoon dive liveaboards table
This list of Truk Lagoon liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see below), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
The Scuba Diving Earth Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating) is explained on each liveaboard review when you click the “Discover Liveaboard” link, and is my own Liveaboard Luxury Rating I’ve assigned to all liveaboards. Choosing between liveaboards is helped by customer scores, and if you get stuck choosing between two or three liveaboards, where each one has a high customer score out of 10, you can use the SDE Luxury Rating to help narrow down your choice.
Think about it like using Booking.com when searching for the best hotel. Booking.com also use a customer score where each customer rates hotels out of 10. This is similar to the liveaboard customer rating, which is also rated out of 10. But let’s say you only like to stay in hotels rated 8 and above on Booking.com, but you also want the hotel to have WIFI or parking, or to have a swimming pool etc. The features each hotel has is usually secondary to the score out of 10.
I hope you enjoyed this article about top ten dive sites in the world by Jacques Cousteau
I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your adventures of diving and snorkeling, in the comments below. Please also share your photos. Either from your underwater cameras or videos from your waterproof Gopro’s!
If this article hasn’t answered all of your questions. If you have more questions either about snorkeling or scuba diving (or specifically about top ten dive sites in the world by Jacques Cousteau), please comment below with your questions.
There will also be many more articles about scuba diving (and snorkeling) for you to read and learn about these fabulous sports.
Have fun and be safe!
Top 10 Dive Sites In The World By Jacques Cousteau
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Article written by Russell Bowyer who has been a scuba diver since diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 1989. After his first dive he trained as a BSAC diver in the UK. He attained his Diver Leader certification with BSAC. He then went on to become a scuba diving instructor, teaching others how to dive and was voted as Diving Officer and Treasurer for the Saffron Walden BSAC club too. Russell has dived all over the world, including the UK, on liveaboards in the Red Sea, the Caribbean, South Africa and the USA. Russell is experienced in all dive types, including drift diving, deep dives that involved decompression stops and recreational dives too.
