One of the most requested dive sites from Atmosphere’s diving guests is definitely Richard’s Point. This dive site is full of life from the minute we enter the water to the deepest part of the dive. No guest has left Richard’s Point without a huge smile! So what is it like to dive there, you ask? Let me take you through a typical dive here.
Once we enter the water and drop down to around five meters, we are in a sandy area with some scattered sea grass beds. We usually find a few seahorses within the first few minutes of the dive, as well as some pygmy pipehorses and the beautiful Armina nudibranch. We can either head north or south, but for this dive, we’ll head north first. Most of the dive is just sand, so the key is to look at and around anything that ISN’T sand. We descend further and arrive at two sunken tree logs, where there are numerous lionfish and small schools of fish, as well as the occasional blue spotted ribbon tail ray.
After investigating the logs, we swim deeper and turn south, checking all of the rocks on the way to the two mooring blocks in the deeper part of the dive, which are at a depth of around 20 meters. We can usually find a small cuttlefish or some small painted frogfish on this route, as well as more small seahorses. We even found a blue-ringed octopus on the way to the blocks! Looking up the slope, we can sometimes see blue spotted stingrays foraging for food. Once we reach the mooring blocks, the real fun starts. In the month of April, these two mooring blocks were home to a pink giant frogfish, a yellow clown frogfish, and a black painted frogfish with orange polka-dots. There is also sometimes a blue spotted ribbon tail ray here as well, in addition to the occasional fimbriated moray eel.
Heading back up to the boat, we pass a sunken fish cage, which was home to a white Clown frogfish for a while, plus numerous other fish. Once on the safety stop, we check out the sea grass some more and usually find a brown hairy frogfish that hung out in the shallows for an entire month. After getting our fill of frogfish, we surface at the boat, ready to share our dive with everyone back at Atmosphere Resorts.
You can’t go wrong diving at Richard’s Point. It has almost everything – nudibranchs, seahorses, stingrays, the occasional octopus, and… tons of frogfish! Next time you’re here at Atmosphere Resorts, ask to schedule a dive at Richard’s Point and make sure your camera batteries are fully charged!
Your marine biologist /Daniel
