Cherna Island
The majestic Cherna Island, a solitary rock bravely faces 50 years of target practice by the Nay this is the only place in vicinity of Karachi city where we find coral reef. Cherna Island is a popular place, for fishing, Scuba Diving, Snorkeling. But often the villager are creates problems for picnickers.
“Our valuable Marine Life”
Jan 15th Divers from “Karachi Scuba Diving Center” were diving at Bachum Reef near Cherna Island, the visibility was 40 to 60ft. normal for the month of January. The reef was full of life the color full fishes were busy swimming in and around the rocky formation. This is one of the best dive sites we have near Karachi shore, where the 40 ft drop from the top of the Plato, which is already 50 ft. deep, to the bottom reaches at a depth of 90 ft makes this dive site perfect location for a deep dive training site.
The Second dive was planned at Cherna Island north-west point, 40 ft deep dive, the visibility was excellent, and water current was pretty strong, moving westerly. Due to the strong current boat anchor could not hold properly and the boat drifted while we were gearing up we decided to make drift dive and discover new ground. We descended on anchor line and started swimming across the current towards the island. Suddenly we notice small patches of coral about 6 to 18 inches diameter and 10 t0 12 inches high approximately 20 ft. apart. And the density increases as we moved towards the island and to our surprise we landed in a good size of coral reef.
There have been small patches of reef existing earlier but this one was gorgeous. A variety of corals we found were simply astonishing, The biodiversity on the reef was remarkable; we noticed different types of Sponges, Anemones, Worms, Crustaceans, Bryozoans, Molluscs, Echinoderms, and a large selection of coral fishes we explore the new found reef for good 40 minutes the maximum time we were allowed to stay at that depth before getting into decompression problems. After surfacing we marked the reef site into our GPS and from January onwards we made 10 dives to explore the reef and documented the following marine life in the form of pictures and video clips.
Corals: - Brain Coral, Disk corals, Brown boulder corals, gorgonian, Orange Daisy coral, Tentacle coral, Flex coral and many more Varity of coral.
Fishes: - Long fin Banner fish, Blue-ring fish, Sergeant fish, Chevron Barracuda, Parrotfish, and Black spotted Puffer, Blue-spotted Fantail Stingray, Yellow Snapper, Sweet lips, Coronation Grouper, Coral Grouper, and Giant grouper, many verity of Scorpion fish, Moray eels, were documented.
Anemone & Jellyfish:- Tube Anemones, Bulb-tentacle Sea anemones, Anemone coral, Upside down jellyfish, Stinging Hydrozoan etc.
Worms: - Striped Ribbon Worm, Fan Tube Worm, Bristle Worm, Spaghetti Worm, Christmas Tree Worm, Flat worm. and Peacock worm.
Facts about Churna Island
It is in Pakistan- Churna Island is in the Arabian Sea.
- The typical depth is 0-20 Metres 0-60 Feet.
- The typical visibility is 3-10 Metres 10-30 Feet.