Toucari Caves ....Well, the famous Toucari Caves provides satisfaction all round. A perfect profile, a perfect plan, and a beautiful reef make this a memorable dive.

We begin in 20ft, moored about 500m off shore in Toucari Bay. Again we start slow finning over a sandy rubbly area with reef formations on our right full of life as we head west towards the coral ridge, slowly getting deeper. A nice gap in the formations guide our way to the spectacular Toucari ridge, the top being about 40ft down to an 80ft sand slope. Shoals of fish dance in formation back and forth over the living healthy landscape as we descend down the ridge looking all around , the other divers silhouetted with big barrel sponges and sea plumes and whips beneath them. Sponges of all size and description you could possibly imagine fill this curved ridge, giving homes to gangs of huge golden Yellowline arrow crabs, banded coral shrimps, and bristle worms. Damsel fish defend their territories while Crinoids flourish and sway like the soft coral Gorgonians. Spotted Morays, Goldentail Eels and Sharptailed Eels, can be found under every rock, together with the shy ballon fish, juvenile spotted drum, and the beautiful pea-sized juvenile trunkfish.

Turtles can often be seen also, either small ones hiding in the shallows or a big one out in the blue.

So we continue north making a gradual ascent and start to curve round east over a huge colony of brown knobbly coral. We follow the reef round to about 30ft where we will find the hidden entrance to the famous Toucari Cave. An oval crack is the entrance which opens out to a low-ish but wide cavern with a mouth shaped exit , broken up by the silhouettes of weird sponges and other colourful invertebrates that sprout from the inside surface , squirrel fish and goat fish dart about in the dark light .Look around and up and you will see orange sea spray and sometimes on the ceiling a spanish lobster .We exit into the welcoming blue where we then turn back again to swim around colourful rock formations and through a magnificent encrusted archway filled with squirrel fish and low-light soft corals. Often a big stingray can be seen resting under this arch and of course the resident barracuda. Next we double-back shallower to a 15ft reef and over the cave that we just swam through, as now the air we had exhaled in the cave has percolated through the reef and is now escaping thropugh the coral floor and looks like champagne bubbles fizzing through the sea. Hover in sky diving position in the bubbles and watch the tiny yellow? and?fish dance together, fighting for the spotlight in the sun's rays. Beautiful…

A magnificent finish to a perfect dive as we then head back to the boat just a little swim away.