Indonesia - Komodo NP: Three Sisters (Tiga Dara)

General benthic features

The frames track the depth gradient he describes. The deepest-looking frame is dim and blue-shadowed, a steep slope where the framework is foliaceous: a pale mustard-olive laminar plate with a white margin, stacked foliose sheets, a broad pale leathery soft coral, a tabulate Acropora above, and maroon and red encrusting sponges between, with orange anthias hanging in front of it - directly his note that depth here was mostly sponges and foliaceous sheets, and dark at 24 m because of the early entry (e.g., Image 2).

2

A cryptic close-up from the same band is almost pure invertebrate color with no stony framework at all: salmon and red-and-white Dendronephthya, a yellow-green crinoid, colonial tunicates, pink, and maroon encrusting sponges, and chartreuse algae (e.g., Image 3).

3

A third slope frame is high-relief and sponge-heavy: broad mustard encrusting sponge sheets, red sponge fans, wiry black-coral whips, a bright green bushy colony, salmon and gray-brown Acropora tables, and small pink corymbose colonies, with open blue water off the flank (e.g., Image 4).

4

The shallow frame is the one he rated: three Acropora tables together, the largest mustard-olive with a vivid white growing rim, a lavender-gray table beside it, and a salmon branching colony below, on pink crustose coralline algae, with several butterflyfish and a cleaner wrasse (e.g., Image 5).

5

Coral cover

Coral cover: 8.3% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 34 of Anderson's edited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table. These are computer-vision indices over photographs, not a diver transect, and a site where sponges and octocorals hold much of the substrate is a hard case for them. Anderson is still comparing computer-vision models, and these figures will be updated as the methods improve.

Stressors

No bleaching, disease, or predation is resolvable, and nothing man-made appears.

Fish and other fauna

The fifth frame is open blue water with a loose school of unicornfish and no substrate (e.g., Image 1).

1

Comparisons with other data

Also on record for this site: Saw first giant trevally of trip (much more common in Raja Ampat). Very dark at 24 m on account of doing dive early in morning (7:30). Stylophora pistillata, pygmy seahorse, Pocillopora verrucosa, small poritids, fluorescent orange soft coral, giant Isopora colonies in shallows. Large morays (green), high Acropora cover and diversity in shallows (5-8 m). though difficult to photograph on account of currents.

Dive record

One dive, 23 January 2019, 07:30, 50 minutes, max 29.6 m, average 15.2 m, 25.6 degrees C, 10 m visibility - his least favorite dive of the trip because of an incessant washing-machine current.