Cham Islands (Cu Lao Cham)

Hoi An · Quang Nam Province · Vietnam

The Cham Islands, known locally as Cu Lao Cham, are a cluster of eight small islands lying eighteen kilometres off the coast from the ancient port town of Hoi An in central Vietnam. Designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2009, the archipelago has benefited from increasingly effective marine protection that is slowly restoring reefs damaged by decades of dynamite fishing and coral harvesting. Diving here will not rival the Coral Triangle's spectacle, but it offers something valuable in its own right: the chance to witness a reef system in active recovery, where every new coral colony and returning fish school represents a small conservation victory. I dived the Cham Islands on three consecutive July mornings, making the twenty-five-minute speedboat crossing from Cua Dai beach each day. The islands appeared through the morning haze as a cluster of green peaks, their forested slopes descending to rocky shorelines fringed by small beaches. The dive sites are concentrated on the western and southern sides of the main island, Hon Lao, where the reef is most sheltered from the prevailing swells. The first dive site was a shallow reef starting at three metres and sloping to eighteen. The coral recovery was immediately visible. Young Acropora colonies the size of dinner plates dotted the substrate between older, established coral heads, their growth a tangible measure of the protection programme's success. Clownfish in three species occupied their host anemones, the aggressive little Clark's anemonefish dominating the shallows while the more timid skunk anemonefish preferred the deeper stations. Nudibranchs were everywhere. I found seven species on the first dive alone, including a spectacular Spanish dancer that unfurled in a crimson spiral when disturbed from its resting spot. The macro hunting continued to reward attention throughout my visit. Pipefish clung to gorgonian fans with remarkable camouflage, their elongated bodies aligned perfectly with the fan branches. Blue-spotted stingrays rested on the sandy patches between coral formations, raising their spotted bodies on their pectoral fins when I approached too closely. A juvenile barracuda school, perhaps two hundred strong, formed a silver tornado in the midwater above the reef, their collective movement creating patterns that shifted like a murmuration of starlings. The deeper sites around the southern islands reached twenty-five metres and offered more dramatic topography. Boulder fields created swim-throughs and overhangs that sheltered groupers, moray eels, and lobsters. The soft coral coverage on these deeper formations was impressive, with purple and white dendronephthya clusters giving the rock faces a decorated, almost festive appearance. Angelfish in several species patrolled these deeper zones, their colours more vivid in the torchlight than in the filtered natural light. The combination of diving and Hoi An is the Cham Islands' ace card. After a morning underwater, I spent afternoons wandering the lantern-lit streets of the ancient town, eating pho in market stalls, and having diving wetsuits tailored alongside silk suits at Hoi An's famous cloth shops. It is a pairing that no other Vietnamese dive destination can match: world-class culture and improving underwater experiences within the same day trip. The diving alone would not justify a dedicated trip, but as part of a Hoi An itinerary, it adds a dimension that transforms a cultural holiday into something more complete.