La Baleine

The shoal owes its name to the spray that rises like a whale's blow when waves hit its top. In the shallow part, two perpendicular canyons on light sand are flooded by hundreds of sergeant majors and juvenile chromis, with yellowtail damselfish, rock beauties, porcupinefish, slipper lobsters and a small hawksbill turtle around. Experienced divers fin about ten minutes along the largest canyon and across fields of gorgonians and barrel sponges to a circular rocky plateau of about 20 m diameter at up to 22 m. Lying under the ferry route, the plateau is neither fished nor hunted, and large spiny lobsters and snappers crowd its cavities. Jacks, mackerel and barracuda hunt the schools above.