PETANI BEACH HOUSE REEF
As part of the 'mapping project' in the PADI DM course, I did the mapping for Petani Beach house reef.
It is right in front of the beach, it's great. It is no more than 40 metres from the shore and not very deep, not more than 12 metres at the most.Our boat was anchored just outside the buoy line at 2.5 metres. Swimming towards the left of the beach, we passed a sandy area of the 'goby land'. You could see hundreds of little goby heads jutting out of their shimp-cleaned houses.
Closer to the reef we found an area with delicate sea whip. As the reef came to sight, we saw 2 stingrays and I thought to myself 'this is not a bad house reef after all' and I was right. You could find the ABCs of diving at the reef, a group of small rocks nestled together with a lot of tube corals, soft corals and hard corals.
Fishes who make the reef their home include squirrelfish, fusiliers, angelfish, porcupinefish, pufferfish, wrasses, groupers and boxfish. According to my dive instructor Bari-san there is also a resident moray eel at the reef. I must have been unlucky as I did not find it in all 3 dives there. As a consolation I saw a white eyed eel instead. |
