EYE-POPPING POLYPS
Coral reefs of Raja Ampat vs Pink sea fans of Plymouth
GO GLOBAL
Raja Ampat, in eastern Indonesia, is the world’s most biodiverse area, and renowned for its forests of gorgonian fan corals.
STAY AT HOME
You can find colonies of pink fan corals on many of the shipwrecks around Plymouth, but my favourite place is the Eddystone Lighthouse, where they can be found hanging like nets between rocky gullies. UK fans are a bijoux 12in tall by 16in wide, but look at them up close and you will appreciate the intricacies of their structure, the distinct pinkishgold hue of the feeding polyps. Pink sea fans are often used by spotted catsharks (yes, Britain has leopard-spotted sharks, too) to secure their developing eggs to the structure. Look really closely and you may even see a superbly camouflaged sea slug, Tritonia nilsodhneri, which mimics the textures of the coral, just as a pygmy seahorse does out in Raja Ampat.
DIVE DEEPER
Dive centre at Fort Bovisand, Plymouth, through Discovery Divers (discoverydivers.net).