Fiji - Vanua Vatu (FJVV37)

General benthic features

The wide shot runs along a spur-and-groove edge where broad gray-green Acropora tables cantilever out over the drop into blue water, backed by ranks of corymbose and digitate colonies in lilac, rose, cream, and olive (e.g., Image 1).

1

A closer frame climbs a coral-crowded spur: convoluted pink-and-white foliose colonies with papillate ridge crests, khaki columnar corals, thickets of stubby Acropora, all set against a bare Porites boulder into which a giant clam, Tridacna, is cemented, mantle frilled and speckled tan and black (e.g., Image 2).

2

Another looks into a canyon between coral walls, its faces plated with foliose and encrusting colonies and smooth Porites domes, a whitetip reef shark cruising through the middle at mid-water (e.g., Image 3).

3

The overhead mosaic is dense with dozens of colonies — plates, cushions, purple and mauve Pocillopora-like heads, and small tables — separated only by strips of green turf and coralline pavement, with a small orange dottyback tucked in a crevice (e.g., Image 4).

4

Coral cover

• Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
• FJVV37, on Vanua Vatu's west side (dived to 12.8 m), has 42% living coral by point-count survey, and the frames show a reef in genuinely good order.
• Transect mean 42 ± 7.2% SE (n = 4 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is this all-transect mean.

Stressors

Visibility was excellent, and no bleaching, disease, or crown-of-thorns damage is in view. The Living Oceans Foundation transects here recorded 4.5% cyanobacteria and no recently dead coral; they carry no bleaching, disease, or crown-of-thorns field.

Comparisons with other data

Apart from the Living Oceans Foundation survey shown here, we found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Other notes

Survey team's site notes: Sites FJVV36, FJVV37, FJVV35 were all located on the west side of the island. Large colonies of massive Porites were intermixed with Halimeda clumps. Up around 15 m typical spur and groove morphology. CCA and smaller acroporids were common in the shallows. Peyssonnelia was common throughout all depths. Specifically at site FJVV37, large plates of Pachyseris, Merulina were common.