Pertamina Pier

Pertamina Pier is an advanced dive site in Timor-Leste — a pier dive in the Dili region that echoes the famous Pertamina pier dives of Indonesian diving, where the hard substrate of oil company infrastructure creates extraordinary macro habitats in the warm waters of the Coral Triangle. The Coral Triangle context of Timor-Leste gives pier dives here a macro diversity unmatched by pier environments in less biologically rich ocean regions: the pilings and structural elements of the pier are colonized by an astonishing density of encrusting organisms — tunicates, sponges, hydroids, bryozoans, and nudibranchs — that creates a micro-ecosystem of extraordinary species richness in the immediate vicinity of the structure. The advanced rating for a site otherwise accessible in shallow water reflects the diver skill required to fully appreciate the site without disturbing the extraordinarily complex and delicate invertebrate communities clinging to the pier structure. Frogfish are among the most eagerly sought subjects at Pertamina Pier: the cryptic ambush predators in their various color morphs occupy sponge-covered surfaces throughout the structure, their remarkable camouflage making detection a skill that rewards practice and local knowledge. Pygmy seahorses cling to gorgonian fans in the current-swept sections adjacent to the pier. Various pipefish and ghost pipefish occupy sheltered positions in the structure. Juvenile fish species in extraordinary variety use the pier structure as nursery habitat, and the resulting assemblage of small, colorful, and often spectacularly patterned animals creates the kind of macro photography opportunity that draw specialist underwater photographers from around the world to the Coral Triangle's best critter diving destinations.