Rhino City

The site lies directly to the west of Laha and is an extension of the same sandy slope, so it is dived the same way: in over the shallows, then a slow traverse while the guide checks patches he already knows. The slope is dotted with anemones, usually carpet or bulb-tentacle varieties, each home to the local anemonefish — black and white striped with pale yellow on the belly — and each worth a stop for the anemone shrimps and porcelain crabs living among the tentacles.

Ribbon eels burrow close to the anemones, and the sand around them holds commensal and emperor shrimps, arrow crabs, hairy crabs and orang-utan crabs, jawfish cleaning debris out of their burrows, and robust ghost pipefish and short-snout pipefish over the sea grasses. Most of the dive is spent in the shallows searching for nudibranchs, moray eels and dragonets. Visibility is 5 to 15 metres and the current gentle, though it can occasionally run strong.