The Telephone Pole Dive Site is a five minute ride from the Riding Rock Marina.
This dive site is located directly off shore from a drainage sluice for one of the ponds.
Type of mooring: boat anchor in a big sand plain.
Site briefing: The depth under the boat is 35 to 40 feet of open sand flats. The wall is behind the boat running parallel to shore. The coral strip on the edge of the wall varies from 40 to 100 feet in width. A large crevice runs through the face of the wall starting in 35 feet in the sand flat and dropping to 100 feet at the bottom of the cut out on the edge of the wall. The Telephone Pole dive site got its name from the time there was a telephone pole wedged over the crevice in the sandy entrance to the cut. It has been broken in half by storm surge and flushed down into the chute. The reef remains a sheer wall for about 200 feet north where it breaks up into a series of coral heads and a sand slope. Going south it remains a straight wall up to the next dive site grouper gully. Big southern stingrays, friendly grouper, mutton snappers, turtles and ocean triggerfish are common here. Several schools of goatfish hover over the edge of the reef. A huge purple gorgonian marks the northern edge of the telephone pole cut and has been often photographed for magazine articles since 1974. This dive has been a divers favorite for some 24 years.
How to dive it: Swim over to the cut and follow through it and out over the wall. Head north along the wall and follow it until it breaks up to coral heads. Return along the edge of the sand flats past the boat and follow the wall south about 200 feet. Turn around and follow the edge of the reef back to the boat.
We go there: usually as the second dive of the morning trip.
