St. Maarten - Mike's Maze
More about this place: Sint Maarten on Wikipedia
More info
Leeward Caribbean Islands (NOAA CRW virtual station) · Eastern Caribbean ecoregion mean=13.1°C-heating weeksMike's Maze is a playful network of low coral ridges and sandy swim-through corridors, notable for a genuinely thriving stand of elkhorn coral - now scarce across much of the Caribbean - alongside brain and boulder star corals. A blind Claude computer-vision point count puts coral cover around 14%. That is above nearby diver surveys (about 6%).
Five independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
One other CRD dive site within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
19 of these 52 photographs are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
Mike's Maze earns its name from a network of low coral ridges laced with sandy swim-through corridors, making for a playful, twisting dive rather than a single open reef face (e.g., Image 16, Image 54).
Between the maze-like topography and a genuinely healthy elkhorn population, this is one of St Maarten's more distinctive shallow dives — equal parts terrain and coral to explore.
General benthic features
The highlight here is a thriving stand of elkhorn coral, its broad antler-shaped branches spreading across several ridge tops — a heartening sight, since elkhorn has grown scarce across much of the Caribbean in recent decades (e.g., Image 7, Image 15, Image 19, Image 21, Image 30, Image 31, Image 36, Image 47).
Around it, brain corals (some strikingly yellow-green) and sturdy boulder star corals anchor the reef, while a soft-coral understory of sea plumes and sea rods fills the spaces between (e.g., Image 3, Image 6, Image 17, Image 26, Image 43, Image 49).
Encrusting sponges in orange, red, and the occasional vivid yellow add color to the rock, and a long-spined urchin can be found tucked into the reef's many nooks (e.g., Image 4, Image 8, Image 25).
Coral cover
Coral cover: 14% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 78 of Anderson's unedited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table.
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
DINOv3 and CoralSCOP were run on the same photos and are listed for comparison. Coralscapes v2 and v1 were also run but are not shown: Anderson does not consider Coralscapes reliable for these photos. No diver transect exists for this trip, so agreement between the rows is not accuracy, and as of September 2026 no computer-vision method estimates coral cover accurately on new images; treat every row as indicative.| Method | Hard-coral cover (%) |
|---|---|
| In-house DINOv3 | 19.4 |
| CoralSCOP unedited | 25.2 |
| Claude | 13.5 |
Independent surveys nearby
| Agency / program | Year(s) | Stations / distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reef Check | 2005–2007 | 4 stations, 1.70–4.91 km | Records ↓ |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | 2013 | 1 station, 3.13 km | Records ↓ |
Dr. Coral (CRD)Within 5 km, 5 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 5 records between 2005 and 2013. The most recent nearby survey is from 2013, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (14%) is indistinguishable from the range of these surveys (1.8–13%): the 0.4-point gap is inside the ±7 percentage-point noise between methods; 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 | Proselyte Reef | 2005 | 6.2% | 1.70 km | — |
| Reef Check | Mike's Maze 2 | 2005 | 13% | 4.77 km | — |
| Reef Check | Mike's Maze 1 | 2006 | 10% | 3.14 km | — |
| Reef Check | Frenchman Reef | 2007 | 3.8% | 4.91 km | — |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | transect 25035 | 2013 | 1.8% | 3.13 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.