Coral Reef Diagnostics

St. Lucia - Superman's Flight

Reef Check Foundation
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Part of the regional summary: St. Lucia

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Photo: Anderson Mayfield/Coral Reef Diagnostics
Country
St. Lucia
Survey date(s)
2022-06-26
Coordinates
13.8310, -61.0651
This site is in the vicinity of a land-based point.
Coral cover
9.0%
Claude computer vision (106 edited photos) · other methods below · median 5.0%
Observations
None noted in the photographs reviewed.
Heat stress
Today’s heat load
29.6°C5.0°C-weeks
3 Oct 2026 · Alert Level 1
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
14.3°C-weeksi
2021–2025
NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Windward Caribbean Islands 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 infoWindward Caribbean Islands (NOAA CRW virtual station) · Eastern Caribbean ecoregion mean: 13.1 degree heating weeks
Photographs
106
50 shown on this page
Site summary

A drift dive along the steep underwater base of Petit Piton in the Soufriere Marine Management Area, better known for sponges than coral: meter-wide barrel sponges, tube sponges, and brilliant yellow and orange encrusting sheets, with black-coral whips and gorgonians leaning into the current. Stony corals are only a minor component, but planktivorous fish stream constantly over the drop-off.

Max. depth dived
19.5 m

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

Two other CRD dive sites within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.

5 of the 50 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

Setting

Superman's Flight is the drift dive that runs along the submerged base of Petit Piton inside the Soufriere Marine Management Area, and the frames show why it is a photographer's site rather than a coral-cover site.

General benthic features

The slope drops steeply into blue water and is upholstered in sponges: meter-wide rose and terracotta barrel sponges standing open-mouthed on the rock (e.g., Image 3, Image 5), gray and lavender tube-sponge clusters, sheets of brilliant yellow and orange encrusting sponge running like paint over whole spurs (e.g., Image 4), plus scarlet, purple, and blue-gray forms tucked between.

3Image 35Image 54Image 4

Black-coral wire whips and gorgonians lean out into the current, and the rock between is a mosaic of coralline algae, turf, and encrusting invertebrates (e.g., Image 1).

1Image 1

Stony corals are a minor component: small pale brain-type heads, mustard-colored mounding colonies, low plating, and encrusting patches, none of them dominant (e.g., Image 2).

2Image 2

Coral cover

Stressors

No corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

Fish are abundant and constant - brown chromis and creole-wrasse-type planktivores streaming over the drop-off, wrasses working the slope, among them a terminal-phase bluehead wrasse (e.g., Image 5).

Comparisons with other data

No other surveys have been conducted at this site to date. Within 5 km, nine Reef Check stations recorded 3.8–57% hard coral cover between 1999 and 2014; the nearest, Reef Check at Superman's Flight, 0.42 km away, read 5.0–24% between 2005 and 2010.

CV model comparison

Mean 9.0%, median 5.0% across 106 photos.
More infoA few colony-focused photos raise the mean; 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 this trip, so agreement between rows is not accuracy.
MethodHard-coral cover (%)
CoralSCOP edited30.8
Claude (edited photos)9.0

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

Independent surveys nearby

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%15%30%45%60%199920102022Reef Check 1999: 34%Reef Check 1999: 38%Reef Check 1999: 39%Reef Check 1999: 43%Reef Check 2000: 12%Reef Check 2000: 28%Reef Check 2001: 8.4%Reef Check 2001: 13%Reef Check 2003: 9.4%Reef Check 2003: 14%Reef Check 2003: 18%Reef Check 2003: 34%Reef Check 2004: 5.3%Reef Check 2004: 13%Reef Check 2004: 18%Reef Check 2004: 18%Reef Check 2005: 18%Reef Check 2005: 21%Reef Check 2005: 25%Reef Check 2006: 12%Reef Check 2006: 16%Reef Check 2006: 22%Reef Check 2006: 24%Reef Check 2006: 30%Reef Check 2006: 33%Reef Check 2006: 57%Reef Check 2007: 5.3%Reef Check 2007: 10%Reef Check 2007: 11%Reef Check 2008: 4.6%Reef Check 2008: 5.0%Reef Check 2008: 8.8%Reef Check 2009: 14%Reef Check 2009: 14%Reef Check 2009: 17%Reef Check 2010: 18%Reef Check 2010: 22%Reef Check 2010: 24%Reef Check 2010: 24%Reef Check 2014: 3.8%Reef Check 2014: 6.9%Coral Reef Diagnostics 2022: 9.0%Year-averaged across all programs: no detectable trend (-0.80 pp per year, not separable from zero; 13 years)
Reef Check Coral Reef DiagnosticsYear-average (no detectable trend)

Within 5 km, 9 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 85 surveys between 1999 and 2014. Of the 7 stations surveyed in more than one year, 3 declined, 2 increased, and 2 changed by less than 5 percentage points between their first and latest surveys. The longest record, Malgretoute (Reef Check, 0.89 km away), went from 43% in 1999 to 22% in 2010. The most recent nearby survey is from 2014, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (9.0%) sits within the range of these surveys (3.8–57%); 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), 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.

Independent survey data near this site
AgencySite / locationDateHard coral cover (%)Distance
Reef CheckMalgretoute1999–201011–43% (16 surveys)0.89 km
Reef CheckCoral Gardens1999–20065.3–38% (12 surveys)1.86 km
Reef CheckAnse Chastanet Reef1999–200614–34% (9 surveys)3.12 km
Reef CheckTurtle Reef1999–200618–57% (5 surveys)3.25 km
Reef CheckSuperman's Flight2005–20105.0–24% (15 surveys)0.42 km
Reef CheckRachette Point2005–20108.8–25% (16 surveys)3.04 km
Reef CheckRachette Pointe200633% (2 surveys)2.89 km
Reef CheckGrande Caille2008–20144.6–18% (9 surveys)3.57 km
Reef CheckCoral Garden20143.8%1.98 km

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.