Lighthouse

The site has three levels and the dive uses all of them. A reef slope runs out from the shallows and steepens into a wall that drops to about 25 m; the wall lands on a plateau at around 30, sandy in places, coral in others; and from the outer edge of that plateau another wall falls away past recreational depth. Most dives work the plateau edge, then climb back onto the reef to finish shallow.

It is the north-western corner, which is where the current comes round, and that is the whole reason the site has the reputation it does. Whitetip reef sharks are seen through the year, barracuda and jacks work the edge, and Cabilao's fame rests on schooling hammerheads that used to come up onto the plateau in the winter months. Those sightings became rare after the 1990s — treat them as luck, not a plan, and dive the site for what is reliably there.

What is reliably there, apart from the sharks, is macro, which surprises people who came for the big stuff. Leaf fish and ghost pipefish sit on the plateau, pegasus sea moths and seahorses work the sandy patches, and pygmy seahorses hold on the fans down the wall. A guide who knows the site will find all of it inside one dive, and the shallow reef on top gives somewhere useful to spend the safety stop.