Manijin Island
Manijin is a small island just off the coast, north of Sea Caves near Peyia. It's a very nice dive site with enough sights to fill several dives. Fish are more abundant here and often appear in large shools. We've also seen moray eels, octopi and other marine life. On the near right side, quite shallow, there are amphora sherds scattered all over, and a few buried amphoras with intact, overgrown mouths. Slightly further on a cave (or at least a big, deep roof) beautifully covered in purple and red calciferous algae. Then, if one continues around the island there's an impressive crater with an arch on the far side. The lefthand side offers more depth (down to 30 m), with a wall (at 20m) and perhaps some larger fish. Closing the circle, before heading back to the shore, there's an ancient stone anchor. Two more of these 3000 year old rarities can be found further south, along with many ancient amphoras, pots and other items. In short, there's much to see.
Getting in: We've read somewhere that "some divers even snorkel out from the shore for 15 mins to dive here". Well, if the conditions are bad one might want to wait with this dive anyway. If the conditions are good, hovewer, we've found that snorkelling out is much quicker. Just off the shore are several narrow, flat-top rocks. The normal starting point is on the sheltered side of these, very close to the benches. But in very good conditions it's just as easy to enter from one of the rocks closest to the island. At our last dive here Sandra forgot her snokel. Entering from the outer rock, and using the regulator while swimming out, the pressure gauge still indicated 180 at reaching the bottom in front of the island. We even rounded the island on that same dive! So don't worry too much about the distance if the conditions are fine.