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Ninety seconds on Church Bay
Come by bus on a still morning, not on a southerly swell, which is common in summer. Bring a mask, since nothing here is reliably for hire.
Swim out to the right, at an angle, towards the inside of the boiler reefs and the big rocks you can see from the beach. The first stretch is shallow sand with little coral. Beyond it the bottom breaks into canyons up to about 4.5 metres deep, and coral and fish thicken near the boilers.
Visibility is best in the sheltered water on the right and drops where nothing shelters the water. Do not stand on the reefs. On a flat day there is a deeper outer reef across the mouth of the bay, with fewer fish, and the rocks along the left edge hold some too.
Parrotfish are everywhere, Bermuda bream and reef chub come in schools, and you will also see grunts, hogfish and wrasse.
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