Anemone City

The guide scans the reef for a long, clearly visible indentation and drops the group at its northern end, no deeper than about 10 metres, so they land on the anemones and not below them. Enter too far north and the current pushes the group onto the eastern side instead. From the indentation the drift runs south at shallow depth, reef on your left shoulder and open water on the other side.

Operators run it on the western side in the afternoon, about 50 minutes, and some trips reach the carpet at the end of a dive that began out in the blue. With a favourable current the drift can carry on to the southern mooring, so the exit point can move. Entries from the zodiacs are made backward, often alongside other divers, and when several boats send groups at once the reef gets crowded. Some liveaboards expect a surface marker at every safety stop, often in strong current, so the line handling is worth practising before the trip.

Large yellow anemones, each with its resident clownfish, cover a stretch of the wall, thickest in the shallow 5 to 10 metre band. Hard and soft corals fill the crevices and niches around them, and the lower wall turns sandier.

Big animals are not the draw. An inquisitive Napoleon wrasse is about the largest thing seen on this leg, and this is a quiet reef-life dive on a reef better known for sharks. What it offers is colour at easy depth, lit by the afternoon sun on the western wall.

Finding the entry is the hard part, and the drift needs steady buoyancy to hold the shallow line over the carpet in moderate to strong current. Keep an eye on the computer: the wall keeps falling below the anemones. Nitrox suits the repeated dives of a Daedalus itinerary.