Diving along the most part of the Peruvian coast is cold water diving. Because of the Humboldt Current water temperatures are varying between 14° Celsius (April to November) and maximum 19° Celsius (December to March).

However, divers that don’t get scared away by cold water and relatively low visibilities may find in Peru a new favorite diving destination. Peru offers nearly virgin dive sites with ship wracks, kelp forests and amazing underwater rock walls, that have only seen by a handful of people before. You also can have amazing dives with sea lions.

See our slideshow 1 of underwater pictures
See our slideshow 2 of underwater pictures
See our slideshow of a ship wreck dive

Have a look at our species determination pictures

See a movie about diving with sea lions
See a movie about diving in Peruvian Kelp forest
See a movie about a ship wreck dive

Find out about our diving spots in Pucusana port near Lima (map of dive spots, dive spot information like depths and species lists, etc)

See our diving programs for Pucusana

Find out about diving in Paracas (dive spots, dive spot information like depths and species lists, etc).

Find out about diving at Pachacamac island.

Even though it’s a cold water destination Peru surprises with an amazing biodiversity: More than 1000 species of fish are registered in Peru, 1400 species of mollusks and over 300 crustacean species. You won’t see sharks when diving in Peru, but we can promise you an average of a thousand or more crabs per dive (if you want to spend 40 minutes of counting).

The Humboldt Current is the most productive fishing area in the world. Six to eight million tons of fish are caught each year in Peru alone. The Peruvian sea is extremely rich in nutrients and oxygen. This in turn means for divers: visibilities are low. On extraordinary days visibility may reach 15 to 18 meters, but the average is 5 to 7 meters and there is a risk of getting natural red or brown tides bringing visibility down to 1 meter.

Our dive guides are biologists or field assistants of the biological research projects of the conservation NGO Mundo Azul. They are trained to find the small biological underwater treasures, like morays, frogfish, different crab species etc. They will demonstrate you interesting cases of symbiosis and help you identifying fish species.

We are used to new divers making a bad face when first looking at the dark green water, but having a bright smile on their face when arriving back at the surface. So far, everybody was surprised and amazed. When are you going to give it a try?