St. Vincent · Saint Vincent and the Grenadines · Muck & macro
Critter Corner
Torpedo rays and seahorses under Fort Duvernette
Area photo: Barry Peters from Greer, SC · CC BY 2.0
St. Vincent's muck dive in the shadow of Fort Duvernette, the promontory on the eastern edge of Young Island off Villa Beach. The bottom lies in 8 m, and pistol shrimp, cardinalfish, torpedo rays, gurnards and seahorses all live here, so photographers run out of card space long before bottom time.
Where it is and how deep
13.1279° N, 61.2041° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
The site lies in only 8 m of water beneath the fort. Divers search the bottom for pistol shrimp, cardinalfish, gurnards and seahorses, and torpedo rays turn up among them. The buoy line is so encrusted with coral and sponges that the descent along it can take 20 minutes.
Marine life and season
- Macro critters
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Good | Good | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Good |
Season follows St. Vincent: No month stands out for the diving; the rainy season runs May to November, and hurricanes are a risk from July to October.
Sources
- St Vincent — SSI
- St. Vincent and The Grenadines — Scuba Diving
- Fort Duvernette (OpenStreetMap) — OpenStreetMap
More dive sites in St. Vincent
Wall
An 18th-century anchor buried in the reef that gives the site its name
Cave & cavern
An underwater fissure into a coastal cave on the leeward shore
Wreck
Three shipwrecks on one dive, the oldest an 18th-century French frigate
Wall
A drift along a leeward wall over the formations of Rock Fort
Muck & macro
Several types of seahorse and frogfish on a single dive
Similar dives elsewhere
Seahorses, batfish and flying gurnards under a cruise ship dock
Seventeenth-century Dutch beads in the sand at 17 m
Open sand off the harbour, searched for batfish and blennies
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Sand-flat macro 3 km off the pier: nudibranchs and seahorses