Bobby's Wall

The site is a steep slope facing east, and the terrain changes as you go: sandy slope, ledges, reef wall, rock formations, and sheer wall with caverns and overhangs. Most of the dive is run at around 18 metres, though logged profiles here reach 24. Encrusting corals, sponges and soft coral cover the face, which is what the small life uses.

Work slowly and close. Hidden along the wall are moray eels, scorpionfish and stonefish, so anything you steady yourself against should be looked at first. The recorded specialities are rare and unusual nudibranchs, frogfish, seahorses, Coleman shrimps, spider crabs and banded pipefish — all of them found rather than swum past, which sets the pace of the dive.

Because the wall is broken up by ledges and overhangs, the natural profile is to start at the deeper end of the slope and step up through the structures, finishing shallow along the reef. The site is at the northern end of San Miguel Island, about 45 minutes by boat from the Manta Bowl shoal, so it is dived on a trip out to this end of Ticao rather than squeezed in beside the pass sites.