Bone Malea

It is a thirty-minute run from Padang harbour, or twenty from Sunari Beach Resort. The site is a slope rather than a drop-off: white sand underneath, coral built up on top of it, and a maximum depth of 20 metres, so the whole dive sits inside a single band and the profile is yours to shape rather than dictated by a wall running away below you.

Hard coral, soft coral and sea fans cover the slope, and the fans mark the structure worth working along. Turtles pass along the reef, stingrays and marble rays are reported on the sand, and snappers, triggerfish and groupers work the coral. Ribbon eels and moray eels sit in gaps in the coral and nudibranchs on the harder surfaces, so it rewards a slow pass in one direction rather than covering ground.

Because the deepest point is 20 metres, the sensible plan is to drop to the base of the slope early in the dive, work along the sand edge where the rays are, then come gradually up through the coral and the fans and finish long and shallow over the top of the slope before the boat picks you up. Nothing published describes the conditions beyond the topography, so treat the first dive here as a look at what the site is doing that day.