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) · Eastern Caribbean ecoregion mean=13.1°C-heating weeksThe 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. A blind Claude computer-vision point count puts coral cover around 3.4%. Wreck and artificial-structure site: this cover value counts coral growing on man-made structure (steel, concrete, wreck debris) and the bottom around it, so it isn't comparable with natural-reef cover or with regional averages.
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 within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
20 of these 53 photographs 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 22, 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 19, Image 37, Image 30, Image 31, Image 55).
A whip gorgonian trails from the highest rail, catching what current there is.
Coral cover
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. Wreck and artificial-structure site: this cover value counts coral growing on man-made structure (steel, concrete, wreck debris) and the bottom around it, so it isn't comparable with natural-reef cover or with regional averages.
Stressors
No corallivores evident.
Fish and other fauna
Beneath the overhangs, spiny lobsters pack together in tight groups, antennae bristling, while an arrow crab picks its way along a mooring line overhead (e.g., Image 12, Image 17).
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
No independent survey was made at this exact site; the nearest ones are listed in the table below.
CV model comparison
More info
DINOv3 and CoralSCOP were run on the same photos and are listed for comparison. Coralscapes v2 and v1 were also run but are not shown: Anderson does not consider Coralscapes reliable for these photos. No diver transect exists for this trip, so agreement between the rows is not accuracy, and as of September 2026 no computer-vision method estimates coral cover accurately on new images; treat every row as indicative.| Method | Hard-coral cover (%) |
|---|---|
| In-house DINOv3 | 16.2 |
| CoralSCOP unedited | 15.2 |
| Claude | 3.4 |
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 indistinguishable from the range of these surveys (2.7%): the 0.7-point gap is inside the ±7 percentage-point noise between methods; the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.
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 range is shown. 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% | 3.44 km | — |
Data & links
All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data-sources table above.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.