Maldives - Kuda Giri Wreck

Setting

A small ship sits upright on the sand beside a coral pinnacle, and after years underwater the two have nearly merged: hull plates crusted in pink coralline algae, railings sprouting cauliflower corals, massive mound corals squatting on the deck, and dark passageways packed with shimmering clouds of glassy sweepers (e.g., Image 2, Image 10, Image 12, Image 14).

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General benthic features

Just beyond, the pinnacle's shallow crown blazes with healthy table and cauliflower corals (e.g., Image 4, Image 20).

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Coral cover

Coral cover: 20% — photo-derived, and the two methods broadly agree (18% vs 21%). This site's figure is the mean of two independent computer vision passes over Anderson's own frames: a DINOv3 calibrated point classifier reads 18.2% and a CoralSCOP computer vision reads 21%, a spread of 2.8 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 18–21% range: the two products have different denominators and should not be treated as one measurement.

Stressors

There's a bittersweet detail here too: derelict coral-farming tables lie nearby, most of their transplanted fragments long dead, though a few stubborn survivors still hang on (e.g., Image 16, Image 22).

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

Fish and other fauna

A pair of Moorish idols patrols the wreck, orange anthias swarm the framework, and a huge sea anemone on the structure shelters anemonefish with a single white bar — the Maldives' own species (e.g., Image 5, Image 23).

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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.