Triton Bay - Larry Dive Heaven

Setting

There was a thermocline at 13-14 m. The reef leveled out at 5 m, and shallower water was hard to find.

General benthic features

At 15 m the reef was relatively barren for a long stretch before reaching soft-coral-dominated reef. Tubastraea colonies, mostly green, were common throughout the site. At 16-19 m, soft corals and Tubastraea dominated. Barrel sponges were plentiful. Bubble coral was present. Hard corals were relatively uncommon at 20 m. Large areas held long-dead coral covered by coralline algae. There were some fungids, though they had been rare on the trip so far. Above 14 m, stony corals became more common. Brain corals were common at 8-9 m. An unidentified plating coral and an unidentified sheeting coral were also seen, but neither could be photographed because the camera housing fogged. Acropora became common shallower than 7 m. At 6-7 m the hard coral community improved significantly, with a thermocline at 6 m (1-2°C warmer). At 5-6 m some large Porites bommies were covered with tunicates (the golden tunicate, the common one seen in the Banda Sea), and fish biomass in the shallows was high. First site where Pocillopora verrucosa was common, though only above 5 m (particularly at 4-5 m). Soft corals were prevalent at all depths.

Coral cover

• No coral-cover figure is published for this site: too few usable benthic frames (three) survived a fogged camera.

Fish and other fauna

A first octopus was seen. A second was seen shortly afterward. “Patrick”-like sea stars were seen. A beautiful scorpionfish and five green-and-black nudibranchs (never seen before, but common at the site) were recorded. Two small, beautiful blue-and-yellow ribbon eels were seen. A black-banded sea snake, the first of the trip, was seen. Very large sea cucumbers were common, and several huge, purple-brown Acropora colonies of a kind never seen before grew at 7-8 m. Large anemones with clownfish were common throughout the site. In general, sea anemone cover was very high. Massive bumphead parrotfish appeared at several places along the site. Highlights were nudibranchs, a turtle, and the sea snake (the first of the trip).

Comparisons with other data

We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Regional context, not a survey of this site: Bawole et al. (2026) report mean hard coral cover at 24 University of Papua monitoring sites in the Kaimana marine protected area around Triton Bay, surveyed by point-intercept transect at 8–10 m: 17%, 24%, and 32% in the no-take zones (eight sites) and 14%, 18%, and 13% in the use zones (16 sites) in 2012–2013, 2015–2016, and 2019. Cover differed significantly between zones but not over time (p = 0.828); these are zone means, not this site’s cover.

Dive record

Anderson's log note for dive 5 reads “Larry Dive Heaven: 10 m viz @ 27°C”; the dive computer's minimum was 24.0°C.

Other notes

The camera fogged up almost instantly.