| Site Type: | Scenic reef and macro |
| Depth: | Top: 5M Median: 9M Bottom: 12M |
| Location: | Panagsama is on the western most point, about one third of the way up the reef. |
Panagsama delivers everything from nudibranchs to pipefish, commensal shrimps to razorfish, and juvenile spotted sweetlips to scorpionfish.
The terrain is a sloping rocky reef with corals dotted about, which peter out around the 12 m mark, so most of what you’ll see is in the 6 to 10 m zone.
The first thing that strikes you about this dive site is the number of pipefish; especially the reef top pipefish who simply sit there on top of the reef sometimes in twos and threes. The ringed pipefish are a little harder to see as they hide in the holes and under ledges. (It would be useful to take a torch on this dive).
A small group of razor fish danced around us on the reef.
There is plenty to see and those who look hard will be rewarded. Often you’ll find a tasselled scorpionfish like this one hiding in plain sight.
There’s lots of jelly coral, and for every jelly coral there’s a Jelly coral shrimp!
There are quite a few Toby’s
and pufferfish around.
We also saw many of the usual nudi suspects Phyllidia and Chromodoris, but this one, a Reticulated Chromodoris I had not seen before: it looks like a sugared jellybean.
At the end of our dive we were treated to the dancing display of the juvenile many spotted sweet lips who seems to samba around the reef tirelessly.
