Reef Scientifico lies in front of the research station and is one of the few places where you literally see the reef monitoring lying there: frames, markers and tagged colonies. Stay clear of them. The dive itself is calm and shallow.
Reef Scientifico is a beginner shore dive at Kralendijk: a reef top at four to six metres with research markers and a slope to thirty metres.
A reef top at four to six metres with finger coral and sponges, with monitoring frames and numbered markers among them. The slope drops to thirty metres. Plenty of juvenile fish on the top; small rays on the sand.
By day, when you can see the markers and not land on them by accident. In light wind the shallow part stays clear.
There is research equipment on the reef: touch nothing, move nothing and keep your fins away. Damaging it means years of a data series become useless. Little parking, no facilities.
Decisions on diveability, technique and health belong with STINAPA, a dive school or a doctor. This page only describes the conditions.
The research station on this coast runs long-term work on coral recovery and bleaching. Some colonies here have been followed for decades; the markers belong to series that go back further than most visitors to the island.
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