Scuba diving Chidiya Tapu and South Andaman (2026)

Fish Point off Mundapahar is the shallow South Andaman start: about 11 m over a Reefwatch solar-powered artificial reef, with clownfish, schooling snapper, and the occasional ray. It is a common Discover Scuba and Open Water checkout site.

Mundapahar Beach is the U-shaped house reef next door — 8 m, wrasse, parrotfish, lionfish, and juvenile sweetlips. Chhe Nala, a collapsed jetty where tyres now form an artificial reef, is a shallow macro dive (4–17 m) with resident stingrays.

Corruption Rock is the South Andaman signature: a pinnacle that breaks the surface at the Chidiya Tapu channel, dropping to 40 m, with barracuda, jacks, snapper, and glassfish stacked in the current. Advanced Open Water / Deep is the usual card.

Parrot's Rock is a moonscape rock cluster in the strait between South Andaman and Rutland — an advanced drift over 5–20 m with gorgonians, morays, and sea snakes. The Chidiya Tapu wreck sits at 30 m; Diver Atlas treats it as a wreck of unresolved identity, no overhead certification implied.

Cinque Island — twin islands joined by a sandbar — is the flagship South Andaman day trip: shallows for everyone and a deeper black-coral wall for Advanced divers, on a longer boat from Chidiya Tapu.

South Andaman diving runs from Port Blair and Chidiya Tapu, roughly 25–30 km south of the city. Because so much of it is drift and channel diving, the calmer winter dry months (November to April, most reliable December–March) matter even more than at Havelock. The monsoon (roughly June–September) closes most exposed sites.

This is a certified-diver's cluster more than a first-timer's. Read each plate's current and depth before you treat it as a beginner day — Corruption Rock and Parrot's Rock are not Fish Point.