Rarotonga Island. Cook Island. Polynesia. South Pacific Ocean. Diving in the lagoon with The big fish, Diving Centre in Rarotonga. Dive in 1-3 meters in the fish filled sheltered marine reserve for approximately 40-50 minutes. You will receive an introductory lesson (how to use your equipment) from one of our experienced professionals here in our dive centre. You will learn how to communicate under water, then be kitted out with scuba gear and walk into the lagoon for a safe entry to the underwater world. Aroa Marine Reserve also has some of the best coral on the island and you will see a huge variety of tropical fish-up close and personal. After your first breath under water, we swim out to the reef where you will be on one of the best spots on the island. There you will have 45-50 minutes just to relax, watch and get comfortable with your equipment…. If you love this, your instructor will ask you if you want to do a dive of the boat. Then you have to do some skills to be prepared for deeper water. Rarotonga is an volcanic island and is completely surrounded by reef. After that the reef slopes down for 200 meters and to a depth of ~30 meters before it ends up in a drop off up to 4500 meters. Within these 200 meters we do our diving. Because of this topography we don't have a huge amount of soft corals, but therefore there are beautiful hard coral formations. The various sides of the island offer you different kinds of dive sites. We are able to show you a diverse range of diving including interesting drop-offs, canyons, caves, swim troughs, passages, wrecks (unfortunately well broken up). You might have the chance to see eagle rays, whitetip reef sharks, turtles, humpback whales (in winter time), baracudas, starpuffer fish, trevallies and much more.