| Site Type: | Reef and Wall; occasional mega fauna |
| Depth: | Top: 5M Median: 15M Bottom: 24M |
| Location: | Actually underneath the second refueling buoy, known as "Fuel Buoy 2" |
So named for the Australian Navy’s fuel buoy moored above, which is used by ships refuel from the large tanks visible on the rocky shoreline above the dive site.
Apart from the areas damaged by the huge chains which anchor the fuel buoy, the area is still largely covered by acropora and brain corals.
For the first time you see patches of bare rock, rather than just fine and delicate coral, though only a few. Check out this video of the different coral formations on Christmas Island.
Most of the time it’s difficult to take steady macro photographs because you can’t rest in the sand or hold on to a piece of dead coral because all of it is alive and fragile. There is a deliberate no gloves policy on Hama’s dives for this reason. So if you want good photographs perfect buoyancy control is a must.
There were lots of brain corals here shaped like large toadstools giving a strange otherworldliness to the place. There were lots of Lionfish in this area – I found three in a small ‘cave’. Apparently they feed early in the morning and late in the afternoon – this guy was obviously just chilling.
The movement of the anchor chain, each link the size of an oval dinner plate, had cut not so much a groove, more like a trench about a foot wide and 3 feet deep through the coral and into the limestone rock below. It had completely straight and smooth sides, and appeared totally unnatural in the landscape.
I didn’t photograph or film it for that reason, but instead captured the more natural inhabitants: sea stars, …
sea fans, …
feather stars …
and violet hydrocorals.
