Day Five

Today we headed off to one of our favorite dive sites, Devil’s Point. This site is known for the profusion of soft corals, and being close to a deepwater passage, you have the chance to see some larger fishes. The site is a pinnacle of rock jutting straight out of the ocean and is covered with a profusion of soft corals.

While diving here several years ago, Academy researcher and soft coral taxonomist Dr. Gary Williams commented that in 10 minutes he saw more species of soft coral than in 10 years of diving elsewhere! Sarcophyton, Lobophytum, Sinularia, Xenia, Cespitularia, Clavularia, Dendronephthya, Lemnalia, Paralemnalia, Tubipora, Briareum etc cover every square inch, not to mention gorgonians, sponges, tunicates, fanworms, nudibranchs, hydroids … list is almost endless. In fact, this is such an outstanding site that we decided to spend the day there since it is the further dive spot from the resort and it doesn’t get much better than Devil’s Point!

This is also an area with a profusion of fish as well, we saw our own Mr. B’s cousin, an adult emperor angelfish, Pomacanthus emperator, as well as several large schools of fusilers and a large school of big eye jack, Caranx sexfasciatus. The most exciting encounter was a small hawksbill turtle, Eretmochelys imbricata, that we saw all to briefly.

Leather Coral, Sarcophyton sp.

Cespitularia sp.

Clavularia sp.

Dendronephthya sp.

Common clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris

Emperor angelfish, Pomacanthus imperator.