Molasses Reef

Boats tie into one of the 32 permanent mooring buoys instead of anchoring, so the dive starts on a fixed line and works outward from it. Under the buoy the reef reads as coral fingers running seaward with sand grooves between them: the shallow spurs sit at around 2 m and the sand at the base of the reef drops to about 18 m. Follow a groove out and a spur back and the navigation takes care of itself.

Which buoy you get decides the dive. Buoy #7 is the Winch Hole, where the large mechanical winch from the Slobadana, a 52 m wooden schooner (170 ft) lost here in 1887, lies on the bottom; other moorings sit over the Spanish Anchor and the coral formation known as The Canyons. The outer reef runs deeper, to about 20 m, and that is the section operators use for drift diving.

Fish life is heavy. Schools of snapper, parrotfish and angelfish work the coral heads, midnight parrotfish and yellowtail snapper among them, with green moray eels down in the grooves. Nurse sharks and Caribbean reef sharks are on the list here too, and stingrays and sea turtles cross the sand between the spurs. The reef lies inside a Sanctuary Preservation Area, where diving and snorkelling are allowed but fishing and collecting are not.