North-west corner of Gili Trawangan
Shark Point
A drift along a soft-coral slope, a cave at eighteen metres, and the sharks that gave the site its name.
North-west corner of Gili Trawangan
A drift along a soft-coral slope, a cave at eighteen metres, and the sharks that gave the site its name.
Shark Point sits off the north-west corner of Gili Trawangan: a long reef that slopes down through soft corals and out into the blue. It is dived as a drift more often than not — the boat drops you up-current, you fly the reef, and the crew follows your bubbles until you surface.
At around eighteen metres there is a cave in the reef where juvenile white-tip reef sharks lie up during the day. They are small, they are used to divers, and the whole etiquette of the site is to arrive quietly, look in, and leave them alone.
The rest of the reef does not let up either. Shark Point is one of the best places in the Gilis for blue-spotted stingrays — they sit half-buried in the sand between coral heads — and big moray eels, octopus, barracuda and turtles are all part of a normal dive here.
What you come for
Shark Point is unusual in that it works at every level. The shallow reef starts at about five metres, so it is diveable on a Try Scuba dive; the cave sits at eighteen metres, exactly the Open Water depth limit; and beyond it the reef keeps dropping past thirty metres for Advanced divers.
What decides the dive is the current as much as the certification. On a strong day the crew picks the drop point — and sometimes the site itself — to match the group in the water.
This is one of the sites where the Gilis' current makes itself felt. It can run medium to strong, which is what makes the drift enjoyable when you go with it and hard work when you fight it. Nobody swims into current here: you let it carry you and the boat picks you up.
Shark Point also has two neighbours, the Shipwreck and the Ridges. The three sit next to each other and the crew chooses between them on the day, reading what the current is doing. Same boat ride, same briefing, whichever way it goes.
Next door to the Shipwreck and the Ridges: the crew picks the drop by the current, so the dive is always right.
Never promised, never scheduled. Mantas, mola mola and whale sharks are not resident in the Gili Islands — when they turn up it is luck, and we would rather you dived here for the reef.
The cave is the postcard, but the reason this is Theo's pick is that Shark Point never gives you the same dive twice. The current moves, the drop point moves, and there is always something different sitting on the sand.
The same for every site on this list.
Diving works all year here. April to October is the dry season and gives the clearest water, with September, October, May and June the sweet spot; July and August are the busiest. November to March brings plankton and less visibility, and with it a better chance of something big passing through.
Small groups, four divers to a guide, and a crew that picks the site by the conditions rather than the timetable. Message us on WhatsApp and we will tell you what the water is doing today.
Book on WhatsAppEvery site on this page is dived from Gili Air, most of them within a fifteen-minute boat ride.
