Cocoa Corner

Cocoa Corner lies on the north side of the Kandooma Channel, at the reef corner beside Cocoa Island. The top of the reef is shallow, around 8 to 10m, and the outer slope runs down between 10 and 30m while the wall beyond keeps falling into deep water. The wall is cut by caves, overhangs and ravines, and the rock between patches of hard and soft coral and sand is covered in bright sponges and gorgonians.

The tide sets the running order. On an incoming current groups usually open on the corner, hanging in the blue for grey reef and whitetip sharks and eagle rays, then drift the outer reef and finish in the caves and overhangs. On an outgoing current the caves come first. The corner takes the heaviest flow, medium to strong; the outer slope is gentler, a drift past sweetlips, snappers, fusiliers, moray eels and turtles, and the dive can end in blue water off the reef.

The water funnelled through Kandooma bunches up on the bend, and that is where the sharks and eagle rays hold station off the edge. Behind the bend the slope sits out of the worst of the flow, and its coral carries the reef fish and the turtles.

Kandooma Thila, the pinnacle in the channel mouth, is a separate dive close by, near enough that the two are offered as a choice for one morning.

A surface marker buoy is treated as a must here, since the drift can finish with the safety stop in open water.

The wall falls past recreational depth beside the corner, so hold your depth along the reef edge, and stay in daylight at the caves and overhangs.