E-6

The pinnacle stands on its own in the middle of the channel, so the descent is into blue until the wall resolves alongside you. Which face you work depends on the water: the two sides the current flushes are where the fish hold, and the lee side, where NAI'A ties in, carries the soft corals and fans. The tip of the mount comes to less than a metre below the surface, so the shallow end of the dive is spent on top of the seamount rather than hanging under a boat.

Cut into the wall is the Cathedral, a large swim-through where sunlight filters down from above and brings out the colour in the gorgonians and sponges covering the sides. Below it the rock keeps going far past anything recreational — the base is at 900 m and more, about 3,000 ft — so the dive is a traverse of the top of the mount rather than a descent of it. Out on the flushed flanks, schooling barracuda, trevally and surgeonfish hold in the current, with hammerheads and eagle rays turning up occasionally, and anthias and fusiliers massed over the reef.

After dark the site changes hands. Crustaceans come out across the coral, several big lobsters and arrowhead crabs among them, and the green lights of the numerous flashlight fish drift over the reef — the part of a night dive here that divers tend to remember. The shallow summit keeps the night dive simple, since there is no need to go deep to find anything.