Bleaching in Indonesia

[imtoad]

After reading reports like this
Indonesia - Global Mass Bleaching of Coral Reefs in 2010 | International Coral Reef Initiative
I was wondering if anyone had returned recently and could give us updates on the situation in specific areas.
Thanks, Hilary

 

[NickLongfellow]

Pulau Weh, Aceh got hit hard. Our house reef had almost 90% acropora loss, many boulder corals made it, and the deeper acro survived, but the shallows on the house reef were devastated. High water temps, no currents (which is extremely unusual here) and lots of sunshine. The outer sites had better survival rates, but it is still quite sad in the shalllows.

 

[NickLongfellow]

just made it back from west side of Weh, acropora is still in pristine condition in shallows, what a relief to see. Should be just a matter of time before they spawn and seed the bleached areas.

 

[AlMitch]

WOW is it that bad!!
That is so so sad!!
Well that means the snorkelling is going to SUCK!! My folks are coming out to P Weh with us and were really looking forward to some good snorkeling!!

 

[SnappyTheDiver]

I have just spent two weeks in Northern Sulawesi and not observed any issues.

 

[NickLongfellow]

no snorkeling is still good, all the same fish life and not to mention turtles and sharks. But many acro died on the beach because of lack of current here, further sites still have lots of acropora like I said.

 

[AlMitch]

Yip I was on Bangka and cant say that I noticed any bleaching.

Nick thanks for the reasurance!

 

[nwflyboy]

Recently got back from 2 weeks at Misool in Raja Ampat. I saw no evidence of coral bleaching on any dives.

 

[metoile]

Hi,

Im thinking about a trip to Pulau Weh - as you, NickLongfellow affirm, the island was hit hard by bleaching: is it worth at the moment, to dive there? Are there enough non affected places left?
And what about the impact on the fish- do bleached corals also mean, no fish anymore - dead zone?
Are there less affected areas quickly reachable after Gunung Leuser?

Thank you very much.

 

[metoile]

I just got that answer from LumbaLumba concerning Coral bleaching there:

We had indeed unusual warm waters (31-32oC instead of 28-29oC) without much currents last year in the months May & June. Sure the warm water caused stress and bleaching to a lot of corals. Especially in very shallow areas, where there hasn’t been much water movement/currents, it looked like a big part of the coral couldn’t cope with the stress.

But after 2-3 months we got normal water temperatures and the currents back again, so the coral bleaching stopped and many corals started to recover. There are some coral species in the very shallow 2 meter depth waters which are permanently gone, but other coral species and things like anemones are back to their normal colours.

To compare with the state of before the bleaching, we have to explain as well that Pulau Weh is never been famous for its coral gardens and shallow diving. On the contrary, most divesites offer great deep underwater landscapes, they are formed by big boulders and rocky formations and deeper down we have our impressive fields of gorgonian seafans, which haven’t been affected by the warm waters. So eventhough we ourselves can see that we have had coral bleaching with stressed and dying coral in the shallows, the regular divesites luckily haven't changed a lot.

We have many customers diving at the moment, really enjoying the dives. Plenty of fish, tons of morays, good viz."