Kirinda & Great Basses Reef

A Mughal coin ship. A Victorian lighthouse in the middle of the open sea. The most remote dive in Sri Lanka.

The Great Basses Reef lies 9 nautical miles (approximately 17km) offshore from Kirinda --- reachable only during a window of approximately 50 days each year, between mid-March and mid-April. Diving is conducted under the supervision of the Malima Diving Club (Sri Lanka Navy, Kirinda, +94 71 772 5903) and the Sri Lanka Coast Guard. The boat ride takes 45 minutes to one hour. Strong currents and surge conditions require experienced divers who are comfortable with unpredictable conditions. The reward is access to dive sites that are among the rarest in Asia.

Experiences at this stop

The coin ship --- Great Basses Reef (20 metres, experienced)

The most famous wreck in the Basses: a 24-gun trading vessel of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (1658--1707), sunk by a storm and discovered in 1961 by Arthur C. Clarke and Mike Wilson. Thousands of silver coins were recovered. The wreck lies accessible only through openings in the reef, with strong currents making the dive challenging. The correct dive briefing treats this not as a technical dive but as a surge dive requiring composure in unpredictable conditions.

The copper ship --- Little Basses (18 to 20 metres, experienced)

A Dutch-origin wooden steam ship whose hull was made of copper plates. The copper has survived centuries of salt water and is clearly identifiable on the seabed. Shallow enough to be accessible to experienced recreational divers, but surge conditions at Little Basses require the same respect as the Great Basses.

The iron wreck --- Great Basses (surface to 5 metres)

A Victorian-era wreck with the top of its engine only 2 feet below the surface at the lowest tide. Accessible to intermediate divers but surge conditions at the surface make the entry and exit the most demanding part of the dive. Correct conditions must be confirmed before departure.

Great Basses Lighthouse

A Victorian granite tower, 37 metres tall, built in 1873 by the British colonial government, standing in the middle of the open Indian Ocean, 9 nautical miles from shore. It still operates. The sight of it on the horizon as the boat approaches is extraordinary. At close range it is stranger still.

Yala National Park dawn safari (morning before or after Basses)

Kirinda sits at the eastern entrance to Yala Block 1. A dawn safari on the morning before the Basses departure --- or on the return morning --- adds leopard, elephant, sloth bear, and crocodile to a day that already contains coin ships and Victorian lighthouses. The combination is available almost nowhere else on earth.