Christmas Island
Join OceanLife Scuba on an exclusive small-group diving expedition to Christmas Island- one of Australia’s most remote and rewarding dive destinations.
Dates
October 25 – November 01, 2027
Duration
8 days / 7 nights
Packages
- $2700 AUD pp. Standard Room (twin or double shared)
- $2950 AUD pp. Superior Room Shared (king or twin beds with sofa bed, private bathroom)
- $3000 AUD pp. Deluxe Room (king bed with sofa bed, private bathroom, and lounge area)
Notes:
- Single Supplement available upon request
- All prices are in AUD (Australian Dollars)
- Both Options – 12 days / 11 nights (25 Oct –05 Nov, 2027)
- Accommodation is twin/double share unless otherwise arranged
- Itinerary may vary slightly depending on weather and sea conditions
Optional Add-On: Cocos (Keeling) Islands
An optional pre-trip extension to the pristine Cocos (Keeling) Islands is available, offering a more relaxed reef environment before the main expedition begins.
Dates
November 01 – 05, 2027
Duration
5 days / 4 nights
Add-on Costs
$2350 AUD per person (4 pax min) (twin or double shared)
Where are Christmas Island & Cocos Keeling?
Located in the Indian Ocean off the north-west coast of Australia, Christmas Island & Cocos Keeling sit around 1,500km from mainland Australia and just 350km south of Indonesia. It’s one of Australia’s most remote and spectacular dive destinations.
Included
Christmas Island
- 7 nights accommodation (shared group properties)
- 10 dives over 5 days (2-tank boat dives)
- Tanks, weights, air fills, and certified dive guide services
- Snacks, water, tea, and coffee on dive days
- 7-day vehicle hire (shared group use)
- 4 nights of home-cooked group dinners
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- 4 nights accommodation
- 6 dives over 3 days
- Tanks, weights, and dive guide services
- Meals included
- Lunch, water, tea, and coffee on dive days
Included for both destinations
- Intimate private group experience (max. 10–12 guests) with certified dive guides
- Travel with a marine biologist and enjoy marine wildlife presentations
- All group transport provided, including vehicle hire and transfers
Excluded for Both Destinations
- Flights (international and domestic to/from Christmas Island)
- Dive gear rental (BCD, regulator, wetsuit, etc.)
- Nitrox
- Fuel and car insurance
- Alcoholic beverages
- Some meals (approx. 2 nights at local venues such as The Golden Bosun Tavern or Rumah Tinggi)
- Travel and dive insurance
- Crew tips
- Accommodation in Perth (if required pre/post trip)
Requirements for Participation
Reasonably confident scuba diving & snorkeling skills, you must be able to swim at least 200 meters unaided in open water. Guests are required to be physically able to get up a small boat ladder on their own. There will also be some walking around the island, so you will need to be able to do that to enjoy all the island has to offer. Please complete a dive medical if you are unsure, or let your guide know, as we will be on an offshore island (away from the mainland).
Accommodation – Christmas Island
Located on the coastline of Christmas Island, Divers Villa & Seaspray is a restored colonial-style home offering spacious, comfortable accommodation ideal for small dive groups. Set close to the main settlement, it is within walking distance of shops, restaurants, the supermarket, and just 8–10 minutes from the Extra Divers dive base. The villa features open-plan living and dining areas, a fully equipped kitchen, and tropical outdoor spaces for relaxing after diving. With ocean views and a relaxed atmosphere, it provides a convenient and comfortable base for our stay.
Room Configurations – Christmas Island
Divers Villa & Castaways rooming includes:
- Deluxe Room – King bed with sofa bed, private bathroom, and lounge area
- Superior Room – King or twin beds with sofa bed, private bathroom
- Standard Room – King or twin beds, shared bathroom
Accommodation – Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Cocos Castaway is a stylish, self-contained beachfront accommodation located on West Island in the remote Cocos (Keeling) Islands, offering a private and relaxed tropical escape right on the edge of the Indian Ocean. Designed for comfort and ease, the property features modern, well-equipped villas and units with private verandahs, allowing guests to unwind while enjoying ocean views, spectacular sunsets, and the laid-back island atmosphere. With complimentary WiFi and practical amenities for longer stays, it combines convenience with a peaceful “slow living” island experience
Room Configurations – Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Castaways rooming includes:
- Standard Villa (1) – 1 Queen bed
- Superior Units (2)– 1 Queen bed + 1 Twin bed
How to secure your spot
Please note that this is a small-group trip with limited availability, so you will need to act quickly to secure your booking. The following payments will be required:
- $800 AUD deposit required to secure your booking
- Remaining payment dates to be confirmed
Payment
There is a range of payment options in the booking system. Individual invoices will be sent to you upon booking. It is recommended to purchase your tickets as soon as possible to secure a cheap flight. To check on available spaces and secure your spot, please email: amanda@amandadelaforce.com
Getting there
Travel to Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands is via Perth, the main gateway to both destinations. There are no direct international flights, so all travel connects through Perth with Qantas (QantasLink), which operates services approximately twice per week on a Monday and Friday schedule.
From Australia or overseas, travelers first fly into Perth, then continue onward to Christmas Island. Flights between Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands operate as part of the same scheduled rotation.
Because flights are limited and operate on a fixed timetable, travel dates must align with the Monday/Friday departures. Typical routing is: Australia → Perth → Christmas Island → Cocos (Keeling) Islands (or vice versa) → Perth → Home
Christmas Island – A Diver’s Paradise in the Indian Ocean
You’ll find untouched dive sites, caves and grottos, sharks, dolphins, endemic fish, steep drop-offs, and exceptional visibility awaiting you in this remote Indian Ocean destination.
Christmas Island is one of Australia’s most unique and least-visited locations, offering a truly unspoiled experience. The island’s narrow fringing reef drops quickly into the deep ocean, creating outstanding diving conditions just meters from shore.
Diving here is incredibly diverse, with coral gardens, caves, caverns, and dramatic wall systems. Marine life is abundant, with over 200 coral species and hundreds of fish species, many of which are endemic to the region.
Sharks are commonly encountered, including whitetip and grey reef sharks, with the chance of seeing silky sharks, hammerheads, manta rays, and whale sharks in season. Visibility often exceeds 30 meters, and dolphins are frequently seen on the surface.
Above the water, the island is equally spectacular. The annual red crab migration sees millions of crabs move from the forest to the ocean in one of nature’s most remarkable events.
Itinerary
Christmas Island Expedition
Day 1 (Mon, 25 Oct 2027): Arrive Christmas Island
Days 2–6 (Tue, 26 Oct – Sat, 30 Oct 2027): 4–5 days diving (walls, caves, pelagics)
Day 7 (Sun, 31 Oct 2027): No diving – island exploration & red crab migration
Day 8 (Mon, 01 Nov 2027): Departure to Perth and onward travel
Optional Add-On: Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Day 1 (Mon, 01 Nov 2027): Arrive and settle in (no diving)
Days 2–3 (Tues 02– Thurs 04, Nov): 2 days diving
Day 4 (Fri, 05 Nov): Fly to Christmas Island to join the main expedition
Dive Site Highlights
Christmas Island offers some of the most dramatic and untouched diving in the Indian Ocean. With excellent visibility, steep drop-offs, caves, and abundant marine life, every dive is different.
Perpendicular Wall: A striking vertical drop-off into deep blue water, covered in soft corals and sea fans. Regular sightings include reef sharks, large schools of fish, and occasional pelagics such as manta rays and dolphins.
Flying Fish Cove: A calm, accessible site ideal for relaxed diving. Expect healthy coral gardens and a wide variety of reef fish, including butterflyfish, angelfish, and parrotfish—perfect for an introduction to the island’s marine life.
Thundercliff Cave: One of the island’s most unique sites, featuring coral gardens, batfish, and interconnected caves and swim-throughs. Divers can even surface inside the main cavern chamber.
Caverns & Drop-offs: Across the island, dramatic underwater terrain includes overhangs, swim-throughs, and steep reef walls dropping into deep ocean. These areas often attract reef sharks, trevally, and larger pelagic species.
About Christmas Island
Christmas Island is one of Australia’s most remote and unique destinations, located approximately 2,600km northwest of Western Australia. Around two-thirds of the island is protected as a national park, creating a rare environment where rainforest meets ocean cliffs and coral reefs.
The island is best known for its annual red crab migration, when millions of crabs move from the forest to the ocean to spawn—one of the most remarkable wildlife events on Earth.
Beneath and above the water, biodiversity is exceptional. The island supports hundreds of fish species and over 200 coral species, with regular sightings of reef sharks, turtles, dolphins, and seasonal visits from whale sharks.
Beyond diving, Christmas Island offers rainforest walks, waterfalls, blowholes, and excellent birdwatching, including several endemic species found nowhere else in the world.
Local Climate
Water temperature: 24–28°C year-round
Recommended wetsuit: 3–5mm
Regional Seasons
Wet season: November to April (warmer, more rain)
Dry season: May to October (less humidity, more stable conditions)
About the Cocos (Keeling) Islands
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are a remote coral atoll made up of 27 islands surrounding a shallow turquoise lagoon.
Diving in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is calm, warm, and crystal clear, with healthy coral reefs, abundant turtles, reef sharks, and excellent snorkeling straight from the beach. It offers a relaxed contrast to the more rugged terrain of Christmas Island.
Highlights include Direction Island, known for pristine beaches and world-class snorkeling, along with opportunities to experience the local Cocos Malay culture on Home Island. Other activities include kayaking, paddleboarding, or lagoon tours.
Photography
Christmas Island is an exceptional destination for underwater photography, offering strong opportunities for both wide-angle and macro work in a single trip. Dramatic underwater topography – including steep walls, caves, and drop-offs into deep blue water – creates ideal conditions for wide-angle images of reef sharks, turtles, schooling fish, and occasional pelagic visitors such as manta rays.
At the same time, healthy coral reefs and complex structures provide rich macro subjects, including nudibranchs, crustaceans, pipefish, and other small reef life hidden within overhangs and coral gardens. With typically excellent visibility and calm morning diving conditions, photographers can easily switch between expansive reef scenes and detailed close-up work throughout the trip.
Bookings, Payment, Cancellation Policy and Force Majeure in relation to the Tour
TERMS & CONDITIONS
1. Insurance
- Amanda Delaforce Photography and Travel Pty Ltd highly recommends you purchase personal travel and dive insurance as soon as possible after confirming your travel plans. We recommend Dive Assure or DAN for diving insurance. Dive Assure offers a Dive and Travel Insurance annual and short-term (per trip). You can purchase it here.
- Evidence of adequate travel and dive insurance must be provided prior to departure.
- The affiliated and established companies such as ‘Carpe Novo’, hold the relevant insurances and maintain responsibility for the dive and snorkel insurance policies and procedures. As such when in the water diving, snorkeling, or swimming you are doing so under the affiliated company’s policies and procedures and must adhere to either the Captain, Dive Instructor or Divemaster’s instructions.
2. Bookings and payments
- Bookings made more than 100 days out from the start of a trip require a deposit of $800.00 USD per passenger
- All deposits are non-refundable.
- Bookings made less than 100 days out from tour commencement require payment in full to secure your booking.
- Payment in full is required 100 days out from the start of the trip. We will email you a final payment reminder prior to this date.
- Each guest will be required to complete a Dive Trip Questionnaire (which may require a Dive Medical) prior to receiving a final tour confirmation. This must be completed and returned to Amanda Delaforce Travel and Photography Pty Ltd prior to final payment being made. Disclosure of your medical history and known conditions is vital, as well as a review of any other conditions that could impact your trip. Amanda Delaforce Travel and Photography Pty Ltd reserves the right to refuse trip participation on medical grounds based on any falsification or exclusion of pertinent information which impacts the trip program.
3. Amendment and cancellation policy
- The trip cost is 100% non-refundable within 100 days of the departure date. This applies to deposits and/or further payments. No exceptions can be made.
- If you cancel your trip 100 days or more before the trip commencement date, and we/you are able to resell/fill your place, a trip credit for your remaining balance (minus a $300 USD service fee) will be issued for use on another Amanda Delaforce Photography and Travel Pty Ltd trip which departs within 2 years of the cancellation date.
- If you cancel your spot less than 99 days prior to the start of a trip, no refund or credit will be issued for deposits that have been paid.
4. Force Majeure
- If our In-Country Providers cancel or if a Force Majeure Event occurs, meaning any act of God, war, terrorism, fire, flood or any other extreme weather conditions, loss of power, epidemics or pandemics, industrial disputes, slow-downs or other strike activities, riots or civil disturbances, acts of government, semi government or other authorities, inability to obtain any necessary license or consent and delays caused by sub-contractors, suppliers or other third parties (including telecommunications carriers), material shortages or other disruption to the trip beyond our control, Amanda Delaforce Photography and Travel Pty Ltd shall not be held responsible for matters outside of our control or any failure to deliver the trip.
5. Liability and obligation
- Amanda Delaforce Photography and Travel Pty Ltd takes no responsibility for loss, damage or injury arising from any shortfall, error or omission in the information passed to the customer during the course of the booking process or subsequent delivery of the product. The company takes no responsibility nor can it be held liable for loss, damage, or injury that occurs on a supplier’s or service provider’s premises or transport, or between two such premises.
- Participation in any of the Activities involves certain risks which may result in injury or death. This warning does not purport to describe or disclose all risks associated with participation of the Activities. There are a wide range of inherent risks when engaging in sports and particularly underwater sports; for example, with diving there is the risk of decompression sickness, embolism or other hyperbaric injury can occur that requires treatment in a recompression chamber. Open water scuba diving trips may be conducted at sites that are remote, either by time or distance, from emergency services or recompression facilities. Scuba diving and snorkeling tours will involve uncontrolled encounters with wild animals which bear the risk of stings, bites, and at the extreme end, more serious injury and death.
- Participants should be responsible and aware of animal behaviors and their own interactions, and choose to engage in these activities entirely at their own risk.
- We will not be liable to you in respect of any personal injury (including without limitation serious injury or death) that you may suffer or sustain directly or indirectly as a result of participating in the trip or the Activities. Nor shall we be liable to you in respect of any other losses arising as a result of any such personal injury (including without limitation loss of profit or earnings or other consequential losses). We will not be liable to you in respect of any of your personal property that is lost, stolen or damaged before, during or after a trip.
- Please ensure you understand our cancellation policy and agree to the booking and trip conditions prior to providing any deposits. By placing a booking with Amanda Delaforce Photography and Travel Pty Ltd, this implies that you accept these booking terms and conditions and our cancellation policy.
Trading as “Amanda Delaforce Travel and Photography Pty Ltd”
