Angel's Window

The topography lets you spiral down around the rock rather than drop straight onto it, and the sides thicken with soft coral as you go, orange and green over most of the surface. Nudibranchs in various hues, pinnate batfish and schools of angelfish are the company on the way round, and there is enough of them to slow the descent well before you reach the window itself.

The window is a swim-through at 22 to 25 metres. Its walls are covered in crinoids and featherstars, so it is only worth going through if you are sure of a contact-free passage; otherwise the outside of the rock is just as good. Below it the pinnacle base flattens out to the north and south, and that ground is home to sponges and sea fans harbouring knobbly pink pygmy seahorses whose presence is all but guaranteed. Red octopus are often found slithering around this area too.

The way back up mirrors the way down: a spiralled ascent past golden trevally and snappers, then into swarms of square-spot anthias as the water shallows. The possible depth of some 30 metres means the profile wants watching on the way round, since circling a rock makes it easier to lose track of the gauge than swimming a line along a reef does.