Alor - Beang Abang (Baeng Beach / Baeng Jetty)

Setting

Visibility was milky green under the jetty, blue offshore (e.g., Image 35).

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General benthic features

The day dive is 81 frames under a jetty: a forest of pilings, each sheathed in red, orange, and yellow encrusting sponges, coralline crusts, ascidians, bryozoans, hydroids, green Halimeda, orange cup corals, and large pink and cream gorgonian fans that catch the surface light (e.g., Image 5, Image 6, Image 18, Image 28).

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Pink tree-like soft corals sit on the black volcanic sand between pilings (e.g., Image 10).

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One frame is important: a concrete and rebar module on the sand carrying a large healthy branching Acropora — an artificial-reef or restoration structure (e.g., Image 17).

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Only the last three frames find natural hard reef: shallow rock pavement with small digitate Acropora, bushy branching corals, and merulinid heads (e.g., Image 46).

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Hard coral is a minority component across both dives; sponges, soft corals, anemones, and the pilings supply the structure.

Stressors

No bleaching, disease, or predation was seen.

Fish and other fauna

The night dive is 75 macro frames on coarse gravel, shell hash, and coarse sand with almost no attached framework in shot: expanded yellow sun-coral polyps, gold-and-white spotted Periclimenes-type commensal shrimp on soft coral, dense aggregations of red hinge-beak shrimp, an Entacmaea-type bubble-tip anemone carpet holding a dozen saddle-spotted squat anemone shrimp (Thor amboinensis), four color forms of cerianthid tube anemone, a yellow amphinomid fireworm, a mantis shrimp filling its burrow mouth, a hairy hermit crab, a decorator crab clinging to hydroid stems across four frames, a giant-clam mantle, a small octopus over seven frames, and a red-orange scorpionfish (e.g., Image 2, Image 27, Image 31, Image 32).

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The day dive (31 July) added a dwarf lionfish (Dendrochirus-type; one of Anderson's frames) and three seahorses — olive, rust, and yellow (four of the frames). Across the two dives there were also repeated blue-lilac Pteraeolidia-type aeolid nudibranchs, a large striped Nembrotha-type dorid, a solitary fluted button coral, scorpionfish tucked into soft coral, burrow-dwelling blennies, an octopus wedged in a crevice, and batfish schooling in blue water off the slope (e.g., Image 9, Image 14, Image 21, Image 25, Image 33, Image 37).

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Comparisons with other data

A muck and mixed-sediment macro site rather than a reef (e.g., Image 51).

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Dive record

Night dive at Baeng Beach, 30 July 2026: in at 18:59, maximum depth 21.1 m, 59 minutes, water 24–25°C (from Anderson's log). Day dive at Baeng Jetty, 31 July 2026: in at 07:21, maximum depth 18.6 m, 64 minutes, water 25–26°C (from Anderson's log).