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| At our last anchorage in Guadeloupe. I expected the smoke from the volcano in Montserrat to give us a nice sunset later. |
and here's the sunset, with Montserrat on the right and Scrumpy on the left (a bit hard to see).
Unfortunately, as idyllic as this anchorage looks, it wasn't as great as we'd hoped. Amongst miles of coral reefs in a marine park, we expected the best snorkelling. There were coral heads still standing tall, but they were mostly dead and covered in algae. The sea floor was littered with broken dead coral branches. There were some beautiful fish still, but against the backdrop of the almost uniformly brown coral, it was difficult to extract much pleasure from amongst the devastation. The lack of any new growth anywhere suggests that the damage wasn't caused by some local phenomenon from which the reef is recovering. I guess the warming of the water or the increase in acidity is likely to be the cause.
I would guess anchoring is responsible for the damage and likely climate changes will prevent regrowth. They currently dumping dredging material on the great barrier so the Aussies can get bigger coal ship into port to send to china faster.....
ReplyDeleteMakes one wonder. I dove on the barrier reef 20 years ago and had some amazing slides, but were lost in my parents move. It was so much better than the FL keys was at the same time, but I hear it is nothing special now in most places. I understand there are still some good areas in Fiji and the Marshall's. Better get there fast.
Anchoring hasn't caused the damage - it was far too widespread, far beyond where anybody would anchor. And if the damage was simply mechanical, there would be signs of regrowth. There is very little of that. Overfishing (some fish eat the algae that grows over coral), ocean warming, increase in acidity due to increase in CO2. 'Getting there fast' might be just the kind of thing that is killing off the coral, ironically.
ReplyDeleteNice images of Catamaran Boats , thanks for sharing a nice blog......
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