Princess Alice Bank

A seamount rising from 2000 m to within 40 m of the surface roughly 90 km south of São Miguel, Princess Alice Bank is one of the Atlantic's premier big-animal encounters. Strong upwelling delivers cold, nutrient-rich water that draws mola mola by the dozens in late summer, while scalloped hammerheads patrol the deeper flanks and mobula rays form spinning aggregations over the pinnacle. The combination of mid-ocean isolation and fierce current makes this a blue-water drift dive where pelagics emerge from the blue with no reef context whatsoever.