San Toribio Reef

San Toribio is built in layers. Low irregular formations step down into small walls and gentle drop-offs, with natural valleys and corridors running between them and arches cut through in places, so the profile keeps changing as the current moves you along. Sea fans and multicoloured sponges do most of the structural work here rather than hard coral.

Somewhere along it there is a shipwreck. It is small, and it is so completely covered that you would swim past without noticing unless someone pointed at it: a shape under the growth that is too regular to be reef. Nothing is known about it. No name, no origin, no year.

An anonymous wreck is a better thing to dive than it sounds. Most wrecks arrive with a story attached and a set of facts to check off. This one arrives with nothing, has been absorbed into the reef it landed on, and is now mostly interesting as a piece of habitat that used to be a boat.

The rest of the site earns its place independently. This is the most structurally varied stretch of the Punta Cancun line, with more relief per metre than the reefs either side of it.

The current shifts across the layers rather than running in one direction, which makes this a dive where staying with the guide matters more than usual. It is a drift; the boat follows.

Do not touch the wreck. Not for your safety, though there is metal under there, but because the coral that has made it interesting took decades to grow over it and comes off in seconds.