Nudibranch Meadow

Begin the dive in 8 metres on the slope and drift slowly out to eighteen, which is as deep as it goes. The seabed is a mix of sand, rubble and low coral patches, and there is no single feature to swim to — the whole slope is the site. Cover it metre by metre with a torch rather than swimming across it, and expect to spend most of the dive inside one stretch of bottom.

The nudibranchs are the reason to be here, and the site lives up to its name: chromodoris and phyllidia inside the first five minutes, then the rubble patches for the electric blue and orange of Nembrotha chamberlaini, the white and purple frills of Flabellina, and a well-camouflaged pyjama slug that looks exactly like a piece of broken coral. The Spanish dancer is here too, but you will likely only see it at night, when it unfurls its frilly body to swim.

Beyond the nudibranchs there are flatworms in staggering colours, easy to mistake for a nudibranch at a glance, and mantis shrimps peering from their burrows. The one animal to identify before reaching for anything is the blue-ringed octopus, which turns up occasionally — small, unassuming, and best admired from a respectful distance. The shallow profile means long bottom times, so there is no reason to hurry any of it.