Maldives - Miyaro Faru
Part of the regional summaries: Maldives - Central (Male Atolls / Ari / Vaavu) and Maldives
More info
Maldives (NOAA CRW virtual station) · Maldives ecoregion mean=2.9°C-heating weeksA late-afternoon drift over tiered table-coral terraces in golden light, highlighted by a giant moray hunting in the open across sand and a huddle of oriental sweetlips packed under one coral table. Computer vision cover estimate is around 20.2%.
Five independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
Four other CRD dive sites within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
4 of these 17 photographs are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
A late-afternoon drift over pink-crusted pavement and sand channels, ending on one of the prettiest sights of the trip's first leg: terraces of living table corals compatible with Acropora, stacked tier upon tier along the reef edge in the day's last blue light, a wire coral corkscrewing up between them (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 5).
Coral cover
Coral cover: 20% — photo-derived, and the two methods broadly agree (17% vs 23%). This site's figure is the mean of two independent computer vision passes over Anderson's own frames: a DINOv3 calibrated point classifier reads 17% and a CoralSCOP computer vision reads 23.4%, a spread of 6.4 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 17–23% 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
Mid-dive, the reef produced a genuine event — a huge dark moray, compatible with a giant moray, abandoned its hole entirely and went snaking across the open sand between bommies, hunting in plain view while the camera tracked it frame by frame (e.g., Image 4).
The closer: a conspiratorial huddle of oriental-type sweetlips — pinstriped in blue and black, fins dipped in yellow — packed shoulder-to-shoulder under a table coral like commuters under one umbrella.
Comparisons with other data
No independent survey was made at this exact site; the nearest ones are listed in the table below.
CV model comparison
More info
As of September 2026 no computer-vision method estimates coral cover accurately on new images, so treat this as indicative rather than a measurement; it is revised as the methods improve.More info
The published figure is the mean of the two methods.| Method | Hard-coral cover (%) |
|---|---|
| In-house DINOv3 | 17.0 |
| CoralSCOP | 23.4 |
| Mean (± SD) | 20.2 ± 4.5 |
| Range | 17.0–23.4 |
Mean ± SD and range are across the computer-vision methods shown.
Independent surveys nearby
| Agency / program | Year(s) | Stations / distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montefalcone et al. (2020) | 2015–2019 | 2 stations, 1.89–3.70 km | Records ↓ |
| Reef Check | 2010–2019 | 2 stations, 1.87–3.20 km | Records ↓ |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | 2015–2017 | 1 station, 4.45 km | Records ↓ |
Dr. Coral (CRD)Year-average (decreasing)Within 5 km, 5 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 12 records between 2010 and 2019. Of the 4 stations surveyed in more than one year, 4 declined between their first and latest surveys. The longest record, Banana Reef (Montefalcone et al. 2020, 3.70 km away), went from 40% in 2015 to 19% in 2019. The most recent nearby survey is from 2019, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (20%) sits within the range of these surveys (1.8–41%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.
Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects; the XL Catlin Seaview Survey uses photo-transects with automated image annotation), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once the range is shown. Station names are not dive-site names.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reef Check | Banana Reef | 2010–2014 | 16–33% (2 surveys) | 1.87 km | — |
| Montefalcone et al. (2020) | Hulumale Beyru | 2015–2016 | 15–41% (2 surveys) | 1.89 km | HeatCRD database |
| Montefalcone et al. (2020) | Banana Reef | 2015–2019 | 12–40% (4 surveys) | 3.70 km | HeatCRD database |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | transect 37001 | 2015–2017 | 1.8–14% (2 images) | 4.45 km | — |
| Reef Check | Kuda Banana Reef | 2019 | 7.2% (2 surveys) | 3.20 km | — |
Data & links
All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data-sources table above.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.