Trou aux Biches

Grand Baie · Pamplemousses · Mauritius

Trou aux Biches sits on the northern coast of Mauritius, widely regarded as the island's premier diving region. The area benefits from a protective outer barrier reef that creates calm lagoon conditions inshore while the seaward side offers deeper reef walls, wrecks, and open-water encounters with larger marine species. This combination of accessible shallow diving and more adventurous deeper sites has attracted dive centres and marine enthusiasts for decades. The underwater terrain at Trou aux Biches is remarkably varied. The lagoon side features coral gardens and sandy flats at 5-10 metres, perfect for training dives and snorkelling, where schools of surgeonfish, parrotfish, and damselfish populate the healthy coral formations. Beyond the barrier, the reef slopes and walls descend to 25-35 metres, revealing a different world of reef sharks cruising the edge, guitar sharks resting on sandy ledges, and eagle rays swooping through the blue. Macro enthusiasts are drawn to the crevice-rich environments where frogfish, leaf fish, pipefish, ribbon eels, and an exceptional variety of nudibranchs hide. The area's artificial wrecks add another dimension to the diving. The KT Mawar, a vessel intentionally scuttled in 2018 at 24 metres, has rapidly transformed into a thriving artificial reef draped in pink soft corals that attract lionfish, scorpionfish, and the rare candy crab. The older Stella Maru, a Japanese vessel resting at 17 metres, offers an easier wreck dive accessible to less experienced divers, with its hull now home to resident moray eels and schools of glassfish. Dolphins are a signature Mauritius experience, and the waters off Trou aux Biches are one of the best places to encounter bottlenose dolphins on morning boat trips. Green turtles rest and feed along the reef throughout the year, and octopuses are remarkably common on the sandy areas between coral heads. Visibility ranges from 10 to 20 metres, occasionally exceeding 25 metres on optimal days, and water temperatures stay between 23 and 28 degrees Celsius. The professional dive infrastructure, calm conditions, and sheer variety of underwater experiences make Trou aux Biches an ideal base for exploring everything Mauritian waters have to offer.