Let’s face it, the oceans ofCoral Islandare a daunting place. Trying to maneuver through each section of the ocean can take a lot of time, effort, and resources, especially when you’re coming back to previously cleared areas to farm trash, scavengeables, or critters.

Luckily, progressing far enough into the ocean will unlock Ocean Caves, and with them, underwater way-shrines to help you find your way through the vast Coral Island ocean. Caves are a great place to farm underwater resources when you’ve run out of trash-filled ocean to scavenge.

Coral Island: An image of the player character swimming in front of Dua-Pulu ocean cave

Updated July 29, 2025 by Eva Csaki:This article has been updated to describe the layout and leveling system of Ocean Caves and include the updated list of loot to be found in Ocean Caves.

What Are Ocean Caves?

Ocean Caves are milestone locations spread out over the various depth zones in Coral Island’s ocean. You canunlock Ocean Caves by clearing all scattered trashandfinding all of the Solar Orbsin an underwater zone.

Once the entire zone is cleared, the zone’s way-shrine will become usable, allowing you to teleport to that zone from any other shrine, above-ground or underwater.

Coral Island: An image of the inside of the ocean caves

However, you can only enter the Ocean Caves after you haveunlocked the Merfolk Kingdom and spoken with the oracle, Cho Oyu.

Once Cho Oyu has granted you permission, you can enter all of the unlocked Ocean Caves.

Coral Island: An image of the player inventory highlighting possible loot items

Ocean Cave Function

Ocean Caves function similarly to the above-ground mine on Coral Island. Much like the mine, Ocean Caves are aleveled system of rooms dedicated to gathering resources.

Unlike the mine, there are no enemies for you to battle as you move from level to level, and the levels are not categorized by number.

Coral Island: An image of both the Coral Island shrine map and underwater shrine map

Also, unlike the mine, Ocean Cave levels do not have ropes or stairways to progress from level to level. Instead, you willunlock passageways in each cavern as you clear the trashin the area.

There are no Solar Orbs here, either. Instead of unlocking orbs or rope ladders, cave passageways will open up gradually as you explore each room.

mixcollage-04-dec-2024-07-34-am-7593.jpg

Each cavern room also comes fully equipped with abuilt-in shrine. you’re able to use the shrine in each room toteleport back to the outside of the cavethat you are in. Internal cave shrines don’t link up to each other, though, so you’ll still need to head from room to room manually.

You can explore the underwater caves as much as you want while still being able to teleport back out of the cave and to the cave shrine.

This makes it that much easier toreturn to your farm, blacksmith, or any other location as necessary, making it that much simpler to complete collections and stay on top of your stamina limit. You won’t ever have to worry about falling asleep underwater again.

Unlike the above-ground mines, Ocean Caveswon’t lock you out of previous roomsor levels. you’re able to head through any unlocked passageway in the Ocean Caverns and return to rooms that you have already cleared at any time. No more traveling between every fifth level.

Furthermore,Ocean Caves aren’t infinite. The cave system functions like a grid, with each room that you clear opening a passageway into a new section of the grid. Like the above-ground mine, you will eventually run out of levels to clear.

Cave Loot

Rather than collecting stones and geodes, the Ocean Caves will allow you to collect trash, fossil nodes, and coffers. Clearing trash in the Ocean Caves will open up other rooms for you to explore and will give you all thesame resources that you can get from clearing trash on the ocean flooroutside.

Farming trash in the Ocean Caves is a great way tofarm scrap and other valuable resourcesfor your farm.

Returning to any Ocean Cave after you have cleared the Coral Island seafloor is a great way to stock up on trash, coffers, fossil nodes, scraps, and glass without having to swim through the entire ocean map.

Youwill not find ocean scavengeables or ocean critters inside the caves. These items will only spawn on the actual ocean floor, so you must swim through the map to find them.

You can alsofind kelp in the Ocean Caves. Kelp won’t spawn in every room, but there’s a good chance you’ll be able to harvest some kelp as you clear the cave levels.

Upgrading your scythecan help you unlock Ocean Cave rooms more quickly and will increase the efficiency of how much trash you can clear in each room.

Cave Locations

There are four Ocean Caves in Coral Island. Each cave signals the transition from one ocean zone to another and is tied in with the depth level achievable in that zone.

Depth level is important to consider when you are filling in your journal collections. Certain ocean scavengeables and critters areonly found in certain depth zones.

Traveling to Ocean Cave shrines is a great way to maneuver the ocean map more efficiently while you work to finish your underwater collections.

10 meters

20 meters

40 meters

Lima Pulu

50 meters

Similarly, coffers are also categorized by depth level. Certaincoffers will only be found in certain depth zones. This knowledge will come in handy when you work on filling up the Coral Island Museum.

Above ground

10-20 meter zone

20 meters and deeper

40-50 meter zone

50-meter zone

Mysterious Coffer

Any zone

While there is a way-shrine in theMerfolk Kingdom, there is no Ocean cave.You can travel to the Merfolk Kingdom as a jump point for traversing the ocean, but there is no cave entrance to explore in this location.

Coral Island

WHERE TO PLAY

Coral Island mixes the cozy farming sim and dating game genres, alongside having to battle monsters and mine minerals and gemstones. There’s plenty of customization to do, for your own unique playthrough.