Passikudah’s reef creates a vast, protected shallow lagoon of extraordinary clarity – water that remains at a walkable depth for several hundred metres, in a luminous pale turquoise that deepens to cobalt at the reef line. These conditions are as safe as a swimming pool and as beautiful as anywhere on the island’s coastline, making it one of Sri Lanka’s most photogenic and most accessible east coast destinations. The resort development around the bay is restrained enough to preserve the natural character that makes it worth visiting.