Best places to scuba dive in January
January is a shark month. Malpelo is the strongest pure pelagic bet, Raja Ampat is the better choice if you want a living reef as well, and South Africa or Jardines de la Reina work when you want shorter, more focused shark diving. I would choose Malpelo if experience and rough water are not concerns.
Where should you dive in January?
Malpelo is the first trip I would book. It ranks #6 overall at 9.3/10, and January sits inside its strict peak window of January — April. Go for hammerhead schools, galápagos sharks, silkies.
Read the Malpelo guide →4 places clear the bar
The order stays tied to the overall ranking. The first card is the answer.
Malpelo
No beach. No easy dives. Plenty of sharks.
Malpelo is a bare rock in the eastern Pacific, which tells you what sort of trip this is. You go for scalloped hammerheads, Galápagos sharks, silkies and huge morays. Expect negative entries, deep profiles and a boat that assumes you already know what you’re doing.
- Peak window
- January — April
- Signature
- Hammerhead schools · Galápagos sharks · Silkies
Raja Ampat
November, if you want the bait.
Raja is still the reef benchmark: anthias over soft coral, bait under the jetties, wobbegongs under ledges and mantas at the cleaning stations. A cruise director on Solitude Adventurer calls November his favourite because anchovies can be everywhere. That is a good enough reason to move the season forward a month.
- Peak window
- November — February
- Signature
- Highest reef diversity · Mantas · Wobbegongs
Aliwal Shoal + Protea Banks
The surf launch is part of the price.
A good warm-season week can include bull sharks, tigers, oceanic blacktips and hammerheads. You earn them with surf launches, current and visibility that changes quickly. This is better for someone who enjoys the rough edges than someone trying to avoid them.
- Peak window
- January — February
- Signature
- Bull sharks · Tiger sharks · Hammerheads
Jardines de la Reina
The Caribbean place I’d still cross an ocean for.
Most Caribbean reputations are better than the diving now. Jardines is the exception I would still book: protection has kept big groupers, Caribbean reef sharks, silkies and real coral structure. It sits near the bottom because the Pacific alternatives above it are stronger, not because this is a consolation prize.
- Peak window
- January — March
- Signature
- Caribbean reef sharks · Silkies · Goliath grouper