Saba - Tent Shallow

Setting

A shallow (dive-computer readout confirms 5.6 m at the safety stop), volcanic sand-and-rock habitat rather than a continuous reef, consistent with the name "Tent Shallow."

General benthic features

Rocky outcrops rising from the sand are thickly colonized by sponges and turf rather than by hard coral: dense clusters of mustard-yellow tube sponges, orange and salmon encrusting/barrel sponges (one large pair flanking a school of reef fish and a striped fish sheltering in a barrel-sponge mouth), pale blue-gray vase sponges, and a black bushy growth consistent with black coral (e.g., Image 5, Image 8, Image 9, Image 18, Image 27).

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Hard coral is present but a minor component: one small honeycomb/star-coral head (tan, evenly pored, healthy) sits beside an orange sponge cluster; a separate frame shows two adjacent grooved brain/star corals (dark, ridged) flanked by orange tube sponges and a mustard hill-type coral fragment; and a low mounding brain coral appears at the base of a rock covered in black sea rods and a purple sea fan (e.g., Image 6, Image 12, Image 22, Image 24).

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Coral cover

Coral cover: 3.0% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 85 of Anderson's unedited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table. Frames were screened before scoring: open sand, mid-water, blown-out, and burst-duplicate frames, dive computers, topside, and diver shots, blue-light fluorescence, and macros were all removed.

Stressors

No bleaching, disease, or physical damage is visible on any of the small number of coral colonies photographed; the habitat's low hard coral component is a feature of the site type (sand/rubble with sponge-colonized outcrops), not a health signal. No corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

The opening and closing frames show a large garden-eel colony: dozens of pale eels with heads raised from burrows across an open gray sand plain, visible in two separate wide shots (e.g., Image 7, Image 33).

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A lionfish (invasive, Pterois volitans/miles) is visible tucked into a crevice on one outcrop, camouflaged against the gray rock. Reef fish (blue and brown chromis, a parrotfish, sergeant majors) move over the structure, and one frame shows a diver examining a barrel-sponge-and-coral outcrop in clear blue water (e.g., Image 49).

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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.