Atauro Island diving can be accessed via day trips run by Dili-based dive operators, but is best explored by spending several days based on the island itself. Within a maximum of 10-15 minutes speedboat ride from Beloi, the main village of Atauro Island, sits a chain of dive sites that offer vast and seemingly never-ending expanses of vibrant coral reefs. Some sites, like the dive resort house reefs and inner lagoons, start shallow before merging onto a gentle slope to depths of 20 meters and more. Watch out for schooling fusiliers, snappers, trumpetfish, puffers, turtles, trevally and more. Large, long-living old specimens of staghorn, boulder, plate, brain and barrel sponge corals are also prominent here.

Haruina, designated as a ‘Tara Bandu’ (Locally Managed Marine Protected Area), is one of the more popular sites due to its dramatic wall and fluorishing fish population. Slightly further north of Haruina, a length of underwater mounds sit deep and offers more adventurous drift dives for the experienced divers to look out for encounters with marbled rays, barracudas, jacks, napoleon wrasse and more.