| Site Type: | Scenic hard coral reef |
| Depth: | Top: 8M Median: 12M Bottom: 31M |
| Location: | Outside the fringing reef at the end and south of Arutanga Passage, Aitutaki |
Hitting the water diving Arutanga Passage you’ll be mobbed by inquisitive and colourful emperors, wrasse and surgeons. The white tipped reef sharks wait in a cave for your visit later in the dive and Napoleon Wrasse watch you from a polite distance.
We play a while with the friendly and inquisitive Angels and Sunset wrasse whilst the other dive pair kit up and descend. Then the dive starts from the reef top at about 8m. There are wide gullies between large stacks of hard corals.
There are hard and plate coral stacks tens of metres high with gullies between. Above us a squadron of eagle rays pass just at the edge of visibility.
Our dive takes us on a circular route down to sandy patches at 30m where we find a white tipped reef shark resting.
Napoleon Wrasse hover at the same depth and close enough to observe us, without appearing so rude as to intrude on our dive.
We pass resting turtles, who invariably move off after a while in search of a more solitary spot.
Once more at the shot line, we have time to play with the photo-bombing Emperor.
