Indonesia - Halmahera: Tanjung Naraka

General benthic features

The deep end is a broad, pale sand-and-rubble apron in dim blue light, with isolated table Acropora plates standing clear of the substrate, scattered massive Porites and green-brown foliose plating bommies (Turbinaria/Pachyseris-type) marking the transition upslope; these are the low-cover frames (e.g., Image 6, Image 18, Image 21, Image 26).

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A steep section drops away into blue with CCA- and sponge-crusted rock and tabulate Acropora perched on the lip (e.g., Image 29, Image 37).

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The mid-slope and crest carry the coral: bright yellow-green branching Acropora thickets standing over open sand, tabulate plates, finger-like Porites, Pocillopora, Platygyra, and Diploastrea-type massives, foliose Montipora and Turbinaria, and a heavy soft-coral component — mauve, pink, and orange Dendronephthya bushes with tan Sarcophyton and Sinularia leathers — that fills the coral-packed frames (e.g., Image 2, Image 4, Image 9, Image 33, Image 35, Image 3, Image 41, Image 44, Image 46).

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A conspicuous feature of the site is the extent of consolidated coral rubble: several frames show broad aprons of broken, well-settled branching-coral fragments with only sparse small colonies re-establishing across them, and one frame is almost entirely rubble (e.g., Image 5, Image 15, Image 40).

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Coral cover

• Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
• Coral cover: 30% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 136 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

The rubble is old, colonized damage rather than anything fresh. No bleaching, crown-of-thorns, or disease lesions were seen in the 32 of 137 frames examined (a randomized subset), although a computer-vision point count called 0.6% of coral points bleached (4 of 136 photos).

Fish and other fauna

Anderson's field note is all about what was in the water column rather than on the bottom: a large school of devil rays, bumphead parrotfish, and blacktip sharks. Fish were dense — anthias, chromis, damselfishes, surgeonfish, and moorish idols over the coral, with schooling fish off the headland in the murkier deep frames — but the devil rays, bumphead parrotfish, and blacktips from the dive log are not resolved in the frames examined (e.g., Image 36, Image 43, Image 47, Image 52).

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Comparisons with other data

We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Dive record

A headland dive on 12 August 2026 worked to 24.2 m in 24–25°C water.