Maldives - Fish House (Fish Head)

General benthic features

Not much coral (e.g., Image 21) — but as a final helping of raw Maldivian fish life, unbeatable.

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Coral cover

Coral cover: 9.4% — photo-derived, and the two methods broadly agree (13% vs 6.3%). This site's figure is the mean of two independent computer vision passes over Anderson's own frames: a DINOv3 calibrated point classifier reads 12.5% and a CoralSCOP computer vision reads 6.3%, a spread of 6.2 percentage points. The map publishes the mean so sites can be sorted against one another, but the honest statement of what is known here is the 6.3–13% range: the two products have different denominators and should not be treated as one measurement.

Stressors

No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

Over a bare, current-polished ridge the water itself is the habitat: thunderhead clouds of dark redtoothed triggerfish, drifting flotillas of bannerfish, and an orange anthias haze that clings to every surviving coral head (e.g., Image 3, Image 4, Image 12).

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Through it all the sharks commute — whitetip reef sharks skimming the pavement in ones and twos (e.g., Image 10), a bulkier gray reef shark ghosting past in the blue (e.g., Image 14) — while a golden phalanx of bluestripe snapper packs into a hollow with a jack circling its edges (e.g., Image 23).

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The boldest resident is a giant moray caught free-swimming in broad daylight, rippling across the pink coralline rock with no crevice in sight (e.g., Image 19).

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A curious batfish sees the divers off (e.g., Image 1).

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Comparisons with other data

No independent survey was made at this exact site; the nearest ones are listed in the table below.

Dive record

The last dive of the trip, and the name is a promise kept.