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Spiral/Sponge Valley/Nick’s Place
 Old Providence Island, Colombia
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Max Depth: 111-120ft/34-37m
Average Viz: 91-100ft/28-30m
Entry Type: Boat
Bottom Composition: Sand
Aquatic Life: Plenty To See
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Rating: 4.00 by 2 divers
Winter: 81-85°F/27-29°C
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Spiral/Sponge Valley/Nick’s Place is a boat accessible salt water dive site, located in Old Providence Island, Colombia. This dive site has an average rating of 4.00 out of 5 from 2 scuba divers. The maximum depth is 111-120ft/34-37m. The average visibility is 91-100ft/28-30m.
Spiral
Site of exceptional beauty, the route begins on the edge of a cliff which plunges to great depths, deeply excavated by vertical fissures and horizontal concavities left by erosion of the calcareous reef platforms during the enormous changes in sea level over thousands of years. This resulted in abundant twists and turns, rocky projections, walls and hollows with different grades of verticality and light. The fauna and flora which covers the bottoms adopt curious forms through their adaptation to the irregularity of the walls and displays intense coloring in the darkest sites. However, the major attraction is a descending tunnel through which barely fits a diver, it descends from 80 to 115 ft of depth and is reserved to expert divers.
Sponge Valley
Very Close to the Spiral site, which makes it possible to visit both on a single drive, by surrounding a rock similar in structure and origin to Turtle Rock, at a moderately inclined slope, on a rocky point, where on a bottom of mixed sand and coral, one encounters a notable group of gigantic sponges the size of a person and even of larger, with characteristic fauna in its interior and abundant organisms, especially fish, in its surroundings.
Nick’s Place
Eight minutes of boat ride from the dive centers, in the Sponge Valley limits, this site is characterized by a great crack that divides the wall. This wall offers in certain months an additional attraction: red hint gruppers (Epinephelus gutattus) come together to reproduce. Nick’s Place scenario is typical of leeward cliffs of the Providence platform, where Montastrea and Agaricia corals grow as shingle reef. This kind of coral development allow them to receive more sunlight to make their vital processes. Creole Wrases (Clepticus parrae) schools swim together, feeding suspended food in the water mass. Beyond 60 ft, it is possible to observe the beautiful blackcap basslet (Gramma melacara) that occasionally swims up side down, close to the corals, watching divers with curiosity. Sponges are enormous, like the ones in Sponge Valley, and a geological formation similar to the one in Turtle Rock enriches this underwater scenery. This site owes its name to the dive guide Nicanor Howard (Nick for his friends) who discovered it.