Sandy Slopes at La Ciénaga

A gently inclined sand and rubble slope between 6 and 24 m descends from a coral ridge into open sand, a habitat mosaic that supports one of the most diverse populations of cryptic reef life in the Rosario archipelago. Longsnout seahorses — Hippocampus reidi — are resident here year-round, anchoring themselves to sea fans and wire corals along the upper slope, while the sandy plain below hosts a completely different community: peacock flounders, lizardfish ambushing from the surface, garden eels swaying in gentle current, and sand tilefish hovering at the entrances to their tunnels. The transition zone between reef rubble and open sand produces the highest species-per-square-meter count of any site in the southern Rosario Islands and makes for genuinely rewarding slow diving.

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