Gorgonian Garden

Boats moor on top of the plateau just south of the Giftun police station, and the drop-in is beside a vertical wall. Put your right shoulder to the reef and let the current take you south. The wall is hung with large gorgonian fans, soft corals rooted in every gap between them, and longnose hawkfish wait in the branches for prey that the current delivers. Out in the blue, operators report tuna and barracuda. Where along the wall you start depends on how deep you mean to go and how you are doing on gas. Further south the wall gives way to a widening shelf and the drop-off turns west in a zigzag. You can follow it for a while, but not so far that you lose the main reef. The dive finishes back on the plateau, a semi-covered coral garden where turtles cruise, with sand between the coral heads that holds bluespotted stingrays and crocodilefish, and the moorings overhead.

Large gorgonian fans clothe the wall and sway with the current, and the hawkfish perched in them, reported independently by two operators, are the small-scale find among the big structure. Below the wall lie caves at 35 m and a tunnel at 40-45 m, outside recreational range. Early-morning dives carry a chance of sharks passing along the drop-off; every operator that mentions them hedges it. The wall, the shelf and the plateau come in one drift, so a single dive moves from fans and open water to a coral garden.

The current always comes from the north but varies from mild to strong, so carry a surface marker buoy and expect pickup away from where you dropped in. The drop-in can be choppy, and the boat waits in calmer water at the moorings. Keep fins clear of the fans. In September one operator warns of titan triggerfish at this site, so keep your distance from any triggerfish that holds its ground. The Napoleon wrasse and morays on the plateau have been fed in the past, which is why they come close; do not feed them.