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Phu Quoc Island is known as one of Coral Paradises as it has been given ocean treasures from Mother Nature. Particularly, Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain is one of those priceless gifts (Read more about other coral reefs as well as snorkeling & scuba diving spots in Phu Quoc Island).
MAIN CONTENTS
🔛 Location
Phu Quoc Coral Mountain is located in a very shallow and calm jade water which is 16 km in the South from An Thoi town would be a coral reef that cannot be missed in this case, especially its beauty also very worth exploring.
By the middle of 2019, the total area of the Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain is about 200 – 300 square meters according to our estimation through visits. Undersea Coral Mountain essentially grows in a shallow watery area at Crystal Reef, 14 km away from the Southernmost tip of Phu Quoc Island – in the An Thoi Archipelago, the South sea of Phu Quoc Island.
From the scene in the photo above, you could recognize how close the surface water stays away from the coral reef, the closest distance is only less than 0.2 meters, too shallow that you are not capable of swimming over.
🔛 What exactly Phu Quoc Coral Mountain is?
Phu Quoc Coral Mountain is a large clump of Cactus Coral (Pavona Coral) that has been growing in Crystal Reef with a lot of massive and table corals surrounded. You can imagine that you will be getting into a genuine hard coral society in a shallow depth of 1 – 3m.
By the reason of shallow depth, this massive Pavona Coral Reef has been growing into a massive size which has a mountain-like outward appearance owning to plenty of sunshine that the coral reef has been getting from the exposure to the sun for millions of years, that why we name it as “Undersea Coral Mountain”. This is also the biggest coral clump between many different coral clumps at Crystal Reef, which has an area of thousands of square meters of coral reefs.
🔛 How to find Coral mountain underwater?
In approaching the Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain you will be running into this very majestic as well as a miraculous scene from afar and the nearer you approach the Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain, the brighter you recognize it is as the photo below. Aside from the presence of hard coral species, in Phu Quoc water, there are also many Massive corals that outwardly seem to be stone-like objects that at first sight, you will probably think they are undersea big stone in mind.
Not falling into a bad situation like most of the other coral reefs in many islands in South Phu Quoc, the state of health of the Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain or this Cactus Coral (Pavona coral) reef is still quite good, it still preserves well an untouched outward appearance regardless of some damaged spots under the impacts of some irresponsible tourists.
Dive into The expedition to Phu Quoc Coral Mountain.
You will have the opportunity to pursue cute fishes from the closest distance as well as see marine creatures living in the coral reef. The Undersea Coral Mountain is divided into two main parts and there is a small lane at the middle which is a concave part, it is deep enough to swim over. And in exploring the Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain we can take advantage of this concave part to explore completely the coral reef.
Swimming over the concave part you can swim to the right side and left side of the Undersea Coral Mountain in turn follow a swimming path of figure 8. In the photo below you can recognize the concave part on the upper left side, this is the scenery of the middle of the Undersea Coral Mountain in the front.
You should find out the concave part in the middle of the Undersea Coral Mountain first then swim over to the behind of the Coral Mountain then circle the clump in order to get the overall view of this great Pavona coral reef.
Beside admiring the majesty as well as the massive size, strange outward appearance of the under Coral Mountain you will find it interesting to see types of cute reef fishes eating tiny marine creatures on the coral reef and Christmas tree worms living on massive corals. For many of them, Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain is truly a home.
“Christmas tree worm” is the common name for a marine worm that lives on tropical coral reefs around the world.
Christmas Tree Worms are ciliary feeders, they use cilia, tiny-hair-like bristles on their appendages, to catch food as it passes by. Once Christmas Tree Worms find a coral to live in, they don’t move much and their brightly colored plumes make them easy to spot in the ocean. When startled, these worms will rapidly retreat back into their burrows, later poking a small amount of their bristles back out of their burrows to determine if the danger has passed.
A few tips for the Coral Mountain Explorers is to swim at slow speed in order to admire the beauty of the Coral Mountain in-depth as well as not create a strong impact on the surface of the coral reef as there are millions of polyps that the coral reef is relying on to grow, in case of producing strong impact by swimming actions from very close distance which will disperse baby polyps or zooxanthellae (single-cell algae) from which coral reefs obtained most of the nutrients, you will partly damage the growth of the coral reef in particular and the marine ecosystem in general.
You will certainly obtain a fabulous experience from the exploration of the Phu Quoc Undersea Coral Mountain in this large spot. You could contact us for inquiring about Phu Quoc Coral Mountain. Besides that, please make reference to Onbird’s early morning snorkeling trip to explore Phu Quoc Coral Mountain and other spots such as Phu Quoc large Golden Anemone Reef or other Phu Quoc Coral Reefs.
🔛 An amazing snorkeling spot in Phu Quoc for kids ?
Coral Mountain is a truly ideal coral colony for kids and parents to gain amazing experience together, bring kids amazing contact with the marine life in the shallow water, coral view in close distance, looking at polys, creatures, sea-worm and fish on corals having them recording beautiful images to enrich kid’s imagine power.
Learn more about Phu Quoc coral reefs here and join us for a unique snorkeling trip following distinct & crowd-avoiding routes sometime.
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