Martini Rock

Beautiful dive with lovely rich orange soft coral everywhere and some deep purple and bright yellow soft coral as well. Every other metre you see something interesting, starting with cuttlefish on the sand, nudibranchs, lionfish, scorpionfish, puffer and burrfish, snappers, broomtail wrasse, and geometric and yellow-margined morays. You can dive round the rock, which is supposed to be like a martini glass on its side, starting off at about 12 metres, moving to 20 and then going back to shallower again. On the first dive we saw a turtle as well. Wonderful for photography, even though visibility isn't brilliant. Water was 26 degrees in early April when we were there. We dived with Al Boom diving based at the Meridien Al Aqah Hotel. words by: Anna Wright, PADI Advanced Open Water Diver