Indonesia - Banda Islands: Tanjung Pisang (Banana Island)

Setting

Visibility was excellent throughout — open blue water on the seaward side of almost every wide frame and the far reef readable at 20 m (e.g., Image 22).

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The site is a steep wall and upper slope falling away from a shallow reef top at the north tip of Pulau Pisang (Banana Island).

General benthic features

The opening wall and bommie face (about 18 frames, 10:21–10:32) is coralline-crusted pavement with blue-gray encrusting and laminar colonies consistent with Montipora and Porites, cerioid Favites/Dipsastraea-type heads, a large gorgonian sea fan, and wire coral (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4).

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A soft-coral-draped wall follows (about 30 frames): dense Sarcophyton and Lobophytum toadstool leathers, pink and gray Xenia/Anthelia-type polyp carpets, red and orange Dendronephthya, blue encrusting sponge, barrel sponges, and feather stars (e.g., Image 5, Image 6, Image 7).

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The upper terrace (about 40 frames) is a mixed branching-and-massive mosaic — corymbose and digitate Acropora, Pocillopora, Seriatopora, blunt-branched Porites cylindrica-type stands, Turbinaria and Pachyseris plates, massive Porites, and Platygyra-type brains (e.g., Image 8, Image 13, Image 14, Image 16, Image 17, Image 19, Image 23).

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A leather-coral garden (about 30 frames, 11:05–11:12) holds the paling cluster, a giant clam, and barrel sponges. The back half of the dive (about 55 frames, 11:13–11:23) is near-continuous corymbose and digitate Acropora carpet, the site's signature habitat, and genus-rich with it (e.g., Image 10, Image 11, Image 12, Image 18, Image 20, Image 21, Image 25).

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Nine snorkel frames cover the shallow flat: lower relief, meandering Merulina/Echinopora-type plates and Pachyseris, a mooring line across one frame, and a blue Linckia.

Coral cover

• Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
• Coral cover: 36% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 180 of Anderson's edited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table.

Stressors

Paling and one bleached colony were seen. Four frames that Anderson marked as possible bleaching show a cluster of roughly five large laminar and plating colonies (Turbinaria/Echinopora-type) that are pale with tissue still present (paling, not full bleaching), one with a small central necrotic patch, beside paled blue-white submassive Porites-type heads and normally pigmented Acropora in the same exposure. A separate pair of pale Porites-type colonies at 10:45 puts the paling at low incidence scattered across the reef rather than confined to one patch. One small stark-white colony is bleached. No crown-of-thorns, no Drupella, no disease, and no predation scars were seen in any of the 182 frames, and no rubble fields or standing dead thickets appear anywhere on the dive. Pale cream Sarcophyton leathers recur and are normal coloration, not bleaching (e.g., Image 9, Image 15).

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Fish and other fauna

Giant clams (Tridacna) recur, one with a mottled blue-and-gold mantle, alongside a long-tentacle mushroom coral (Heliofungia-type), magenta and pale gorgonians, pink-red barrel sponges holding damselfish, green barrel ascidians, black feather stars, a titan triggerfish, a bluefin trevally, anemonefish, Moorish idols, unicornfish, and dense chromis, anthias, and fusilier schools.

Comparisons with other data

Reef Check's Pulau Pisang West station, 0.62 km away on the same island, averaged 56% hard coral across its 2018 surveys and 54–65% across 2015–2019; its two Pisang East stations, about 1 km away, recorded station-year means of 45–56% across 2016–2022 (1.01 km) and 37% in 2017 (0.91 km), and the Coral Triangle Center (CTC) recorded 47% at Syahrir Timur (11), 0.36 km away, in September 2018. These are different stations and different observers, so cross-checks rather than repeats of this site.

Dive record

Tanjung Pisang (Banana Island, also logged as Tanjung Serrang) was the first dive of the 2018 Banda trip, on 25 April 2018. The log carries two entries that morning: a short snorkel at 09:34 over the shallow flat (2.4 m, 32.8°C average) and the dive itself at 10:19, 63 minutes to a maximum of 31.4 m, averaging 13.11 m, with a dive-average water temperature of 30.3°C. The 2.4 m depth is from the snorkel, not the dive.