Saudi Red Sea - Al Fasmah (Yanbu)
Part of the regional summaries: Saudi Arabia - Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, and Red Sea
More info
Al Madinah and Makkah (NOAA CRW virtual station)Al Fasmah, dived the same Yanbu morning as Alrass Alakhdar, is a densely covered reef cut by narrow gullies and canyons, with cobalt Acropora, apricot corymbose Acropora, and magenta pocilloporids over coralline rock. Published cover was 22% with 28% of coral tissue bleached, and white colonies recur through the frames.
الفسمة، التي غِيص فيها صباح اليوم نفسه في ينبع مع الراس الأخضر، شعاب مغطاة بكثافة تشقها أخاديد وأودية ضيقة، مع Acropora كوبالتية وAcropora عنقودية بلون المشمش وبوسيلوبوريات أرجوانية فوق صخر مرجاني. وبلغت التغطية المنشورة 22% مع ابيضاض 28% من نسيج المرجان، وتتكرر المستعمرات البيضاء في الإطارات.
ترجمة هذا الملخص بالذكاء الاصطناعي؛ النص الإنجليزي هو المعتمد.
Two independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
4 of the 20 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
The structure is a shallow reef complex cut by gullies and canyons — one narrow blue channel runs between two vertical coral-covered walls, chromis stacked through it.
General benthic features
The reef top is densely covered and, in the shallow strobe-lit frames, spectacularly colored: cobalt and powder-blue digitate Acropora, apricot and salmon corymbose Acropora, magenta and lilac pocilloporids, yellow-green Turbinaria-type plates, mustard Millepora-type fire coral, tan and cream knobby Porites, olive faviids, and orange encrusting sponge, packed close over coralline-crusted rock (e.g., Image 1, Image 3, Image 4).
A large apricot corymbose Acropora table with a school of green chromis over it is the single best-composed frame of the dive (e.g., Image 2).
Coral cover
- Reference: Mayfield (2025)
- Data file: (Mayfield, 2025-appendix A)
- CoralNet submission package (accession #5546)
- 22% ± 12% SD across 116 photographs.
Stressors
The reef was in the 2023 thermal-stress event when photographed, and white colonies appear repeatedly. One of Anderson's frames (outside this page's gallery) shows a fouled pipe lying across the reef: debris.
Comparisons with other data
Apart from our own published survey shown here, we found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. Within 5 km, two Aeby et al. (2021) stations recorded station-year means of 51–83% hard coral cover in 2015; the nearest, Aeby et al. (2021) at Yanbu 4, 1.48 km away, read 83% in 2015.
Dive record
A late-morning dive to 15 m on 16 September 2023 with Umluj Dive Center — the second dive of the Yanbu day that began at Alrass Alakhdar.
Other notes
The site is also spelled "Alfasmah".
CV model comparison
More info
The reference is this dive site's own published CoralNet point count by the author (Mayfield 2025, Environments 12:248, Appendix A; most frames annotated by CoralNet's AI, trained and checked by the author). The computer-vision rows are this site's own values: Claude is a blind point count of all of the site's edited photographs, and CoralSCOP is the site's finished survey of its edited photographs. They are on different frame sets from the published count, a row under 30 frames is indicative only, and no computer-vision method yet estimates coral cover accurately on new images.| Method | Hard coral cover (%) | Photos (n) ± SE |
|---|---|---|
| Published point count (CoralNet-assisted) | 22.0 | |
| CoralSCOP edited | 30.8 | n = 116 |
| Claude (edited photos) | 26.5 | n = 116 · SE 1.2 |
The two computer-vision methods agree within 4.3 pp (26.5–30.8%) and read 4.5–8.8 pp above the published point count (22.0%); the headline is the published point count because it is the site's published value (CoralNet-assisted: most frames were annotated by CoralNet's AI, trained and checked by the author).
See a more detailed, stand-alone version of this table.
Independent surveys nearby
Within 5 km, 2 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 2015. The most recent nearby survey is from 2015, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (22%) sits 29 points below the one nearby survey station (51%, excluding 1 best-patch value above 70% that is not a site mean); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.
Collected by other programs using different methods, 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.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aeby et al. (2021) | Yanbu 4 | 2015 | 83% best patch | 1.48 km | doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0246854 |
| Aeby et al. (2021) | Yanbu 6 | 2015 | 51% | 1.79 km | doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0246854 |
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
- Aeby GS, Shore A, Jensen T, Ziegler M, Work T, Voolstra CR (2021). A comparative baseline of coral disease in three regions along the Saudi Arabian coast of the central Red Sea. PLOS ONE 16:e0246854. PDF
- Mayfield AB (2025). Using Tourist Diver Photos to Assess the Effects of Marine Heatwaves on Central Red Sea Coral Reefs. Environments 12:248. PDF