Anguilla - Oosterdiep Wreck
Part of the regional summary: Anguilla
More about this place: Anguilla on Wikipedia
More info
Leeward Caribbean Islands (NOAA CRW virtual station)The Oosterdiep Wreck is a slowly developing artificial reef off Anguilla, its hull and rails colonized by boulder and brain coral, coralline algae, and tube sponges, with packed groups of spiny lobsters sheltering under the overhangs. As on any wreck, its coral cover counts coral growing on the man-made structure, so it isn't comparable with natural-reef cover.
One independent survey station shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
One other CRD dive site with its own page within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
These are unedited originals; edited versions will replace them.
18 of the 48 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
The Oosterdiep Wreck rests on a sand seabed off Anguilla, its steel hull and deck structure now a slow-growing artificial reef (e.g., Image 2, Image 5, Image 8).
It is a young, still-developing reef community layered onto a genuine piece of maritime history — equal parts wreck dive and hard coral bio-inventory (e.g., Image 42, Image 28).
General benthic features
Divers can swim through open compartments and along rails where patches of boulder and brain coral, likely Montastraea, Orbicella, and Porites, cling to the metal alongside crusts of red coralline algae and clusters of small tube sponges (e.g., Image 44, Image 3, Image 4, Image 16, Image 37, Image 30, Image 31, Image 55).
A whip gorgonian trails from the highest rail, catching what current there is.
Coral cover
- Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
- Coral cover: 3.4% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 66 of Anderson's unedited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table.
Stressors
Two massive colonies on the deck are dead, old mortality now covered in turf and coralline algae (e.g., Image 19).
An old glass bottle stands upright in the sand beside the wreck, a piece of marine debris (e.g., Image 22).
No corallivores were evident.
Fish and other fauna
Beneath the overhangs, spiny lobsters pack together in tight groups, antennae bristling. Schooling baitfish hover over the open sand beside the hull, and the odd jack cruises the wreck silhouette (e.g., Image 7, Image 41, Image 38).
Comparisons with other data
We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. Within 5 km, one independent station, XL Catlin Seaview Survey at transect 25024, 2.85 km away, read 2.7% in 2013.
CV model comparison
More info
A few colony-focused photos raise the mean; the median is the typical photo. No computer-vision method yet estimates coral cover accurately on new images, so treat this as indicative rather than a measurement; it is revised as the methods improve.More info
DINOv3 and CoralSCOP were run on the site's photographs (see each row's n) and are listed for comparison. No diver transect exists for this trip, so agreement between the rows is not accuracy, and no computer-vision method yet estimates coral cover accurately on new images; treat every row as indicative.| Method | Hard coral cover (%) | Photos (n) ± SE |
|---|---|---|
| In-house DINOv3 | 16.2 | n = 66 · SE 1.0 |
| CoralSCOP unedited | 15.2 | n = 60 · SE 1.7 |
| Claude | 3.4 | n = 66 · SE 0.8 |
The two computer-vision methods agree within 1.0 pp (15.2–16.2%) and read 11.8–12.8 pp above Claude's blind point count (3.4%); the headline is Claude's blind point count because no transect or manual count exists here.
See a more detailed, stand-alone version of this table.
Independent surveys nearby
Within 5 km, 1 independent survey station recorded hard coral cover in 2013. The most recent nearby survey is from 2013, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (3.4%) is not compared with these surveys: none lies within 2 km.
Collected by other programs using different methods (the XL Catlin Seaview Survey uses photo-transects with automated image annotation), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | transect 25024 | 2013 | 2.7% | 2.85 km | doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930 |
Data & links
All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data sources above.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.