TRAVELSPECIAL preferable to the humid garden villas of the interior . The island itself is small – you can walk around it in 25 minutes – and surrounded by tidal sand flats . There ’ s an airy restaurant and coffee area open to the sea , plus a bar , a camera room and a reception area with serviceable WiFi , plus an ancient cat that howled for food and disliked being touched .
Nature bites back
Most of our diving took place along the eastern side of Maratua Atoll , with wind and sea conditions preventing us from exploring the exposed sites to the north . Our shakedown dive took place along a sloping wall , Midnight Snapper Run , yielding at least a dozen hawksbill turtles and impressive coral coverage .
It was largely a stony coral environment , with exceptionally beautiful staghorn and table coral in the shallows giving way to brain coral and tangled colonies of red Monipora plate coral . Along the walls there were giant barrel sponges topped with crinoids extending their arms into the current . There were some beautiful red gorgonian fan corals , of the Melithaea species , but no Dendrophylia soft coral trees .
Disturbingly , we had a casualty on the first day . The water was warm and some of us were wearing shorties or rash vests with exposed limbs . One of our group brushed against a hydroid that delivered a sting to his leg , prompting
The jetty and dive centre at Nabucco Island , seen from the air
Acres of healthy staghorn coral
Nabucco Island from the air , note the shallow sandbanks and the channel
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