Down to the dive site: Ernie’s Point
Dive site name: Ernie’s Point
Dive type: wall dive, reef dive, drift dive, nitrox dive
Depth: 14 – 28m
Viz: 5m to 25m
Skill level: intermediate and up
Getting there: four minutes by boat
Once upon a time a charismatic grouper nicknamed Ernie chose a small cave this beautiful reef wall to call home. Ernie has moved on but the site has kept his name, and features thousands of bright yellow sea cucumbers in addition to larger and more mobile delights.
Like many of the sites along the northeastern promontory of Sabang this site is significantly affected by tides so go with an experienced divemaster and adjust your dive plans in the presence of strong tides and eddies. This is a site where your wall dive can suddenly become a drift dive!
We enter this dive site after a short boat ride from LLV across Sabang Bay, dropping down to a depth of around 14m before turning south and descending the wall.
At around 21m you’ll find the cavelet at the foot of a large rocky outcrop which Ernie used to call home, which is often now visited by other groupers and covered in sea fans. Mantis shrimp often build their nests in the tube shaped holes around the mouth of the cave.
At around 25m you’ll find large rocky outcrops covered so thickly in sea cucumbers you can barely see the rockface despite them measuring only around 5cm in length. They are know for unusual behavior including evisceration, asexual reproduction, and regeneration, with a body covered in microscopic spicules made of calcium carbonate and a retractable outgrowth called a respiratory tree that allows it to extract oxygen for respiration.
Triggerfish, angelfish, and butterfly fish swim in abundance here, and schools of trevally and mackerel are common.
Due to the depth of the foot of the wall this makes an excellent nitrox dive to extend your bottom time.
Once we turn the dive and ascend to higher depths, there is a beautiful coral forest up at around 14m to explore, where you will occasionally find one of the area’s sea turtles coming to graze and swim alongside you.
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