Yellow
Wall, Rinca Island, East of Komodo
Premier dive sites in the south are found in the horse shoe bay
between Rinca and Nusa Kode. Divers are divided between Canibal
Rock and Yellow Wall as to which is their favorite site, as each
has its own merit. Yellow Wall running down the east coast of Nusa
Kode, to the south of Rinca Island.
The shallows are very rich in fish life, particularly plankton feeders.
Fork-tailed fairy basslets swarm around the drop-offs in great orange
and purple schools. Pairs of colourful butterflyfish forage in the
reef crannies for small crustaceans or coral polyps.
Yellow Wall is actually two walls, one atop another, second of
which is an overhang that plunges 50 meters to the floor. The site
is covered in yellow soft corals and is rich invertebrate life,
yellow pigmy seahorses, colonial blue tunicates, myriads of nudibranchs,
and blue-ringed octopus. Yellow Wall faces west and light is best
from middary onwards.
Clown triggerfish, perhaps the most distinctively marked of all
the reef fishes with its black body, round orange mouth, yellow
face band, white-spotted underbelly and yellow tail, stake out their
territory along the face of the reef.
In the deeper waters a couple of white-tip reef sharks may swing
around to give you a close look. Red snappers with bright yellow
eyes will keep a wary distance, and green turtles often row by.
Yellow Wall of Texas is best dived in the afternoon, when the sun
provides more natural lighting.
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