Scuba Diving in Long Island

Diving in Long Island is the quiet end of the Bahamas. There are no dive fleets here, no cruise-ship crowds and no daily guaranteed boat schedule. What there is instead: a handful of owner-operated captains running boats for one to four divers, an extraordinary number of shallow sites, and three assets that genuinely compete with anywhere in the country.

The first is Dean's Blue Hole. At 663 ft (202 m) it's the third-deepest blue hole in the world, behind the Taam Ja' Blue Hole in Mexico and the Dragon Hole in the South China Sea. Most of the internet still says it's the second deepest, and some sources still call it the deepest, so you'll see that repeated widely. It held the title for years, which is why. It's also the home of Vertical Blue, the elite freediving competition founded by William Trubridge, who lives on the island. World records get set here in clusters. One edition of Vertical Blue alone produced eight of them.

The second is Conception Island, an uninhabited no-take national park an hour by boat from the north end, where a mile and a half of leeside coral wall drops thousands of feet. Nobody else is diving it. Mahi-mahi run through in May, June and July, and hammerheads, mantas, dolphins and eagle rays all turn up unannounced.

The third is Shark Reef, historically significant as the first shark-interaction dive ever run in the Bahamas. Set your expectations honestly, though. This is not Tiger Beach. It's a handful of Caribbean reef sharks at 30 ft. How it's run varies by operator and by era: some accounts describe an easy, low-key encounter with sharks keeping their distance, while others describe a genuine baited feed, with a can of fish parts going into the water and a dozen or so reef sharks crunching into it. Ask your operator which one you're booking. Either way it's intimate and historic, not a spectacle.

One structural note that trips people up. Long Island is about 80 miles long, with two airports at opposite ends. Dean's Blue Hole is at the south end. The boat diving is at the north end. They are 45 minutes to an hour apart by road, and you cannot combine a boat day with a Dean's day.

Best dive sites in Long Island

Dean's Blue Hole

This is a psychological dive more than a technical one. You're not diving to 663 ft. You're diving the top 60 to 100 ft of a 663 ft shaft, and that turns out to be plenty.

The hole is hourglass-shaped: a narrow throat about 100 ft across that flares into a cavern roughly 330 ft wide, extending back under the beach. So you descend, lose the surface, lose your vertical reference, and the geometry stops making sense. Sunlight dies around 60 ft and from there it's torches. The detail divers always mention: at 70 or 80 ft, the fish are swimming upside down, oriented to the roof instead of the seafloor. Tarpon hover at around 80 ft, waiting to ambush.

Be clear that it isn't the Bahamas' best reef dive. You dive Dean's because of what it is, not because of what lives in it.

Depth: Rim at 20 ft (6 m); typical profiles 60–100 ft (18–30 m); total depth 663 ft (202 m) | Level: Advanced recommended for the cavern

Conception Island Wall

An hour by boat from the north end, off an uninhabited island, inside a no-take national park established in 1964. About a mile and a half of leeside coral wall, tops at 40 to 55 ft, dropping vertically for thousands of feet.

Some operators run it as a drift, which tells you the water moves. But the real character of this dive is that nobody knows what's going to show up. Mahi-mahi during the May to July run. Manta rays. Hammerheads. Dolphins and eagle rays coming right up to divers, two or three at a time. It's a roulette wheel with excellent odds and almost no other divers in the water.

Depth: Wall top 40–55 ft (12–17 m); typical profile 60–100 ft (18–30 m) | Level: Advanced recommended

Barracuda Heads

The dive guides' own favourite, which is usually a signal worth trusting. It's not a spectacle site, it's a density site. A coral head at 50 ft with the richest biodiversity on the island.

Expect at least two Caribbean reef sharks on nearly every dive, big schools of horse-eye jacks and Bermuda chub, and both Nassau and tiger grouper. One local captain saw a 30 ft whale shark here, which is a story rather than a pattern, but it tells you what can pass through.

Depth: ~50 ft (15 m) | Level: All Levels

M/V Comberbach

A British steel freighter that helped build the island, scuttled deliberately in 1986 as a dive attraction. She sits upright in around 90 to 100 ft, and because she was made safe before sinking, you can swim the engine room and the captain's quarters. The wheelhouse is intact.

The signature detail, and the thing every guide points at, is the vehicle sitting in the forward hold. Sources disagree about what it is, though not evenly: the sources that name a make, model and year all call it a 1975 Ford van, and one tourism listing calls it a shattered bus. The van is the better-attested version. Go and settle it yourself.

Depth: 90–100 ft (27–30 m) | Level: Advanced

Shark Reef

Historically this is the important one. Long Island ran the first shark-interaction dive in the Bahamas, and the site is credited with setting the standard for shark encounters worldwide. That's a real piece of dive history and it's worth diving for that alone.

Set your expectations properly, though. At 30 ft you'll meet a handful of regular Caribbean reef sharks. What you won't know until you book is the format. The site's reputation is built on an easy, shallow, low-adrenaline encounter, but it has also been described as a baited feed, with fish parts tipped into the water and a dozen or so reef sharks piling into them. Those are two very different dives, so confirm the current format with your operator. It is not Tiger Beach either way, and nobody here pretends otherwise.

Depth: 30 ft (9 m) | Level: All Levels

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Best time to dive Long Island

The best time to dive Long Island is November through May, when the seas settle, the visibility peaks and the big animals are most active.

Don't plan a trip around Vertical Blue without checking first. The competition has typically run at Dean's Blue Hole in July, and the 15th edition ran 1 to 11 July 2025, but it was cancelled outright in 2024 (Trubridge suspended it, citing the island's infrastructure), and no 2026 dates have been announced. That cuts both ways: check the calendar whether you want to watch it or want to keep the competition lines out of your dive.

Long Island is genuinely exposed to storms. Hurricane Joaquin hit as a Category 4 in October 2015, the first Category 4 hurricane known to track through the Bahamas in October since 1866. The island is divable year-round in principle, but August through October carries real trip-cancellation and infrastructure risk, and travel insurance is not optional in that window.

Diving conditions in Long Island

Diving conditions in Long Island are calm and clear, and Dean's Blue Hole is the calmest water on the island.

One thing worth being straight about: you will read that Dean's Blue Hole has a dramatic halocline. We could not find a credible source for that, and it doesn't match the geology. Dean's is a marine, tidally connected saltwater hole in a coastal bay, structurally different from the freshwater-lensed inland blue holes of Andros or the Yucatán cenotes. What is well documented, and far more interesting, is the light cutoff around 60 ft and the fish orienting upside down to the roof of the cavern.

The reef system is fringing and patch coral with extensive spur-and-groove formations. The island is a two-sided proposition: the Atlantic east side is rugged with hard corals adapted to swell, while the leeside west carries the soft corals and holds all the dive operations.

Marine life in Long Island

Marine life in Long Island is the reward for a place almost nobody dives. The Bahamas Shark Sanctuary, declared in 2011 across roughly 243,000 sq mi (630,000 sq km), is why the reef sharks are still here, and Conception Island National Park has been a strict no-take reserve since 1964.

Mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus): May to July, at Conception Island

The seasonal run that local captains plan around. If you're diving Conception in early summer, this is what you're hoping to intercept.

Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi): year-round, especially at Barracuda Heads and Shark Reef

The backbone species, showing up on nearly every dive at Barracuda Heads and resident at Shark Reef.

• Tarpon (Megalops atlanticus): hovering at around 80 ft inside Dean's Blue Hole, waiting to ambush. Also cruising the reef at Poseidon's Point.
• Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus): Critically Endangered, protected by a Bahamas-wide closed season from December 1 to the end of February. You'll see them in the crevices inside Dean's Blue Hole.
• Green turtle (Chelonia mydas): Conception's mangrove flats are an important nesting and nursery area.
• Reef and resident life: blacktip shark, tiger grouper, great barracuda, horse-eye jack, Bermuda chub, spotted eagle ray, mutton and glasseye snapper, southern stingray, moray eels, parrotfish, scorpionfish. Elkhorn and staghorn coral, large sponges, soft corals on the leeside.
• The wildcards: hammerheads and manta rays turn up at Conception with no reliable season. Don't come expecting them. Do come ready.

Discover more marine life on Divearoo's global heatmap.

Practical information

Dive prices

Long Island is a book-direct, owner-operator destination and nobody publishes a rate card, so treat prices as indicative and confirm before you fly. Budget roughly $150 to $200 for a two-tank boat dive including gear, and more for the Conception day trip, which is a full-day charter. A guided dive or freedive at Dean's Blue Hole ranges widely depending on what you want and what gear you need.

One new line item to ask about. The Bahamas National Trust raised entrance fees across its national parks effective 1 July 2026, at $15 per adult. That doesn't touch Dean's Blue Hole, which is not a BNT park and remains a free public beach with no gate and no fee. But Conception Island National Park is a BNT park, so a park fee may now be passed through on Conception day trips. Ask your captain whether it's included in the charter price or charged on top.

The island is more expensive to reach than it is to dive. Out Island accommodation, a mandatory rental car, a two-leg flight and no competitive pressure on a handful of operators all add up. Call it $$$.

Getting there

Fly international into Nassau (NAS), then take a domestic hop with Bahamasair or Southern Air Charter, roughly 45 to 55 minutes. Long Island has two airports and choosing between them is the single biggest planning decision you'll make. Stella Maris (SML) is in the north, half a mile from the resort and close to Shark Reef, the Comberbach, Barracuda Heads and the Conception departures. Deadman's Cay (LGI) is in the south, the Clarence Town side, and it's the airport for Dean's Blue Hole. They are 45 minutes to an hour apart by road on an 80-mile island with effectively no public transport. Rent a car.

There's no chamber on Long Island. The nearest is in Nassau, a 45 to 55 minute flight away, with no scheduled night flights. That's a real, non-theoretical reason to dive conservative profiles here. Carry evacuation coverage and confirm it's accepted.