Coral Reef Diagnostics

Maldives - Miyaru Bay

Reef Check Foundation
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Part of the regional summaries: Maldives - Central (Male Atolls / Ari / Vaavu) and Maldives

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Coral Health Index: TBD
Photo: Anderson Mayfield/Coral Reef Diagnostics
Country
Maldives
Survey date(s)
2017-05-17
2017-05-18
Coordinates
3.9932, 73.5249
Approximate position.
Coral cover
19%*
Claude computer vision (19 edited photos) · other methods below · median 20%
*Based on only 19 reef-habitat photos; this estimate is less certain.
Observations
crown-of-thorns
Heat stress
Most recent heat load record
30.1°C0.0°C-weeks
26 Oct 2026 · Bleaching Watch
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
2.2°C-weeksi
2021–2025
NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Maldives virtual station
i 5-year mean max. DHW is the mean of the annual maximum DHWs over the five complete years named above, not conditions today.
More infoMaldives (NOAA CRW virtual station)
Photographs
21
20 shown on this page
Site summary
Read this summary in:

A low field of small cauliflower corals and knobby mounds recolonizing older framework after severe damage from an earlier crown-of-thorns outbreak (possibly 2013), most of them crusted in coralline algae, plus turtles and eagle rays cruising past.

Max. depth dived
30.2 m
sample-sheet maximum
Sea surface temp. (satellite)
29.9°C
mean; range 29.8–29.9°C
satellite sea surface temperature (SST), mean of the 2 survey dates (NOAA Coral Reef Watch, Maldives), not an in-water reading; it is the warmest-pixel (90th percentile) reading in the station area and can run 1–1.5°C above the reef

Three independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.

Six other CRD dive sites with their own pages within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.

19 of the 20 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.

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Photo credit & attribution

Site description

General benthic features

The reef itself tells a story of recovery — a vast, low field of small cauliflower corals and knobby mounds recolonizing an older framework, with a photogenic black-and-white-spotted guineafowl puffer bumbling over rock crusted in pink coralline algae (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 6, Image 7, Image 8, Image 9, Image 10, Image 11, Image 13, Image 14, Image 19).

1Image 12Image 26Image 67Image 78Image 89Image 910Image 1011Image 1113Image 1314Image 1419Image 19

Coral cover

Stressors

During a crown-of-thorns removal survey in May 2017, divers from Coral Reef CPR and Carpe Diem Maldives removed 106 crown-of-thorns starfish from this reef over 17-18 May (listed as "Stage" in Coral Reef CPR 2017; Anderson's field sheet rows for Miyaru Faru Bay sum to the same 106), and the notes record severe damage from an earlier outbreak (2013?), with most colonies small and covered in crustose coralline algae.

Fish and other fauna

"Miyaru" means shark in Dhivehi, but on these two dives the bay's gentle slope belonged to other big animals: a sea turtle wedged in among the corals at dusk, and spotted eagle rays gliding past in the blue the next morning, long tails trailing behind them (e.g., Image 3, Image 15, Image 17, Image 21).

3Image 315Image 1517Image 1721Image 21

Clouds of damselfish hover over the coral field, and healthy branching colonies with pale growing tips hint at a reef rebuilding after an earlier crown-of-thorns outbreak (e.g., Image 4, Image 5, Image 18, Image 20).

4Image 45Image 518Image 1820Image 20

Comparisons with other data

Montefalcone group (Donati et al. 2025; Germani et al. 2025) surveyed this site (Myharu Faru) in 2021, 0.04 km from the pin. Cover values from that work are not among the survey records shown on this page. Within 5 km, three independent stations recorded station-year means of 19–76% hard coral cover between 2015 and 2025; the nearest of these, Montefalcone et al. (2020) at Cocoa Corner, 2.21 km away, read 76% in 2015.

CV model comparison

Mean 19%, median 20% across 19 photos.
More infoA few low-cover photos (sand, rubble, or open bottom) pull the mean down; the median is the typical photo. No computer-vision method yet estimates coral cover accurately on new images, so treat this as indicative rather than a measurement; it is revised as the methods improve.
Headline: Claude computer vision, a blind point count of this site's own photographs.
More infoOther rows are for comparison only and are never averaged. No diver transect exists for these photos, so agreement between rows is not accuracy.
MethodHard coral cover (%)Photos (n) ± SE
In-house DINOv315.1
CoralSCOP edited15.0
Claude (edited photos)19.1*n = 19 · SE 3.2

The two computer-vision methods agree within 0.1 pp (15.0–15.1%) and read within 4.1 pp of Claude's blind point count (19.1%).

*Based on only 19 reef-habitat photos; this estimate is less certain.

See a more detailed, stand-alone version of this table.

Independent surveys nearby

Data availability near this site
Agency / programYear(s)Stations / distanceLink
Montefalcone et al. (2020)20151 station, 2.21 kmRecords ↓
Montefalcone et al. 20262024–20251 station, 4.30 kmRecords ↓
Reef Check20221 station, 2.54 kmRecords ↓
Hard coral cover over time — this site and every independent station within 5 km. Programs are shown separately because they use different methods at different stations; the lines are not one comparable series.
0%20%40%60%80%201520202025Montefalcone et al. (2020) 2015: 76%Reef Check 2022: 19%Montefalcone et al. 2026 2024: 43%Montefalcone et al. 2026 2025: 39%Coral Reef Diagnostics 2017: 19%Year-averaged across all programs: illustrative only; the programs differ in stations and method, so no trend is claimed (5 years)
Montefalcone et al. (2020) Reef Check Montefalcone et al. 2026 Coral Reef DiagnosticsYear-average (illustrative only, programs differ)

Within 5 km, 3 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 4 records between 2015 and 2025. The one station surveyed in more than one year declined by 4.0 points between its first and latest surveys. The longest record, Kuda Giri Wreck (Montefalcone et al. 2026, 4.30 km away), went from 43% in 2024 to 39% in 2025. Since 2021, station-year means average 34% (range 19–43%; n = 3 station-years from 3 records). This site's own estimate (19%) is not compared with these surveys: none lies within 2 km.

Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names. Values above 70% are marked “best patch”: surveys often target the densest coral on a reef, so these may overstate the site as a whole.

Independent survey data near this site
AgencySite / locationDateHard coral cover (%)DistanceLink
Montefalcone et al. (2020)Cocoa Corner201576% best patch2.21 kmdoi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00587
Reef CheckGulhi Island Backreef202219%2.54 km—
Montefalcone et al. 2026Kuda Giri Wreck2024–202539–43% (2 surveys)4.30 kmdoi:10.1007/s00338-026-02850-x

Data & links

All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data sources above.

© Coral Reef Diagnostics.

References

  1. Montefalcone M, Morri C, Bianchi CN (2020). Influence of Local Pressures on Maldivian Coral Reef Resilience Following Repeated Bleaching Events, and Recovery Perspectives. Frontiers in Marine Science 7:587. PDF
  2. Montefalcone M, Bianchi CN, Morri C, Ahmed H, Pancrazi I (2026). Outcomes of the fourth global coral bleaching (2023–2024) in the Maldives. Coral Reefs. DOI
  3. Coral Reef CPR & Carpe Diem Maldives Pvt. Ltd. (2017). Crown-of-thorns starfish removal report, North and South Malé Atolls, 13-20 May 2017. PDF