Indonesia - Komodo NP: Pengah Kecil

Setting

A submerged pinnacle Anderson dived in August 2009 (to 27.1 m) and again on 25 January 2019, when he had to abort after 20 minutes in what he called every manner of water motion conceivable - upwelling, downwelling, washing-machine, surge, and rip.

General benthic features

He wrote that he needed to check his pictures because the coral was among the best of the trip, and the frames settle it. The brightest frame is a slope at effectively continuous cover: mint-green, teal, and tan digitate and corymbose Acropora packed shoulder to shoulder with plating colonies and a lavender foliose plate, crinoids in the gaps, and dozens of orange anthias and a red bigeye in the water in front of it (e.g., Image 2).

2

A dimmer wide frame is denser still and more varied: teal and mustard Acropora, purple-brown foliose plates, rust-red plating colonies with blue growing margins, a pale massive dome - with two long horizontal tabulate plates at the top of the frame that look dead and turf-covered, the only clear mortality in the set (e.g., Image 1).

1

Foliose corals carry two frames: a wall of stacked pale gray-lavender foliose tiers above a teal corymbose Acropora and a brown meandroid brain coral, with a blue Linckia starfish alongside; and a frame whose lower half is ruffled brown foliose plates with a gray brain coral, a mustard tabulate plate, and chartreuse branching coral above - almost certainly the vase-like foliaceous corals he admired but could not name (e.g., Image 3, Image 5).

35

The close frame is broad brown plating sheets with white tubercles, a teal Acropora recruit, a blue vase sponge, and red encrusting sponge (e.g., Image 4).

4

Coral cover

Coral cover: 30% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 37 of Anderson's edited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table. Anderson is still comparing computer-vision models, and these figures will be updated as the methods improve. As of September 2026 no computer-vision method estimates coral cover accurately on new images, so treat this as indicative rather than a measurement.

Stressors

No bleaching, disease, or man-made objects. No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Comparisons with other data

Also on record for this site: 2019-1-25 dive 3: Pengeh Kecil (#26): 15:25-15:45 (20 min). Had to abort dive early on account of currents (20 minutes). Seriatopora hystrix, diverse and abundant Acropora, Montipora, stinging hydroids (got stung), vase-like foliaceous corals=beautiful (forgot name).