Crete island is very popular among scuba divers, particularly the northern side of the island. Malia, Agios Nikolaos, Agia Pelagia, Xersonissos, Chania and Souda are tourist places where many Crete diving centers have their base. These centers offer diving courses, boat trips to interesting diving spots or just rent the necessary equipment if you need to dive individually. All around the coastline, there are many nice Crete diving sites, especially reefs and caves, such as El Greco reef and El Greco cave, Stavros cave, Big Anchor and the Messerschmitt crash site. Very interesting is also small island Dia.
All diving centers provide courses both for grown ups and for children. The simplest program is known as snorkelling and it's very suited for kids to swim around shallow waters looking for marine life under the rocks. The most difficult program is a deep diving in open sea from a boat. This is only for experienced, certified divers. Most of tourists choose simple training courses with diving near shores to depths of 20-30 meters.
