coral bleaching ...

[gopbroek]

Here now and bleaching is pretty bad, more than I thought it would be. Columbia was especially bad. Some places still have some flesh left on the hard corals but very, very little overall.

As a sidenote the lobsters are larger and more plentiful than ever before; maybe there is some correlation? Don't know but definitely something I've noticed.

And how was the current? It seems to me that there has been a lack of current or upwelling off the walls south of Francessa since last spring. Cedral and above seems to have some current and and the bleaching is less pronounced

 

[ReadyTo Dive]

And how was the current? It seems to me that there has been a lack of current or upwelling off the walls south of Francessa since last spring. Cedral and above seems to have some current and and the bleaching is less pronounced

Totally agree. It's unusually calm/slow and seems to gets calmer the further south we go.

 

[DeltaWardog]

I didn't really think much about it at the time, but reflecting on my trip from Nov 5 - Nov 20, I can say we had consistently weak currents everywhere we went, every day. Definitely the least 'current-y' diving I've had on any trip to Cozumel so far.

The bleaching is terrible. Some reefs look like it snowed everywhere. Others aren't too bad, but I think it's just because the affected coral wasn't growing as much on those. Crossing my fingers that it can recover while at the same time realizing that the way humanity is addressing climate change, that's unlikely. It's pretty disheartening. I really fear for what it's going to look like in 5-10 years.

 

[ReadyTo Dive]

I didn't really think much about it at the time, but reflecting on my trip from Nov 5 - Nov 20, I can say we had consistently weak currents everywhere we went, every day. Definitely the least 'current-y' diving I've had on any trip to Cozumel so far.

The bleaching is terrible. Some reefs look like it snowed everywhere. Others aren't too bad, but I think it's just because the affected coral wasn't growing as much on those. Crossing my fingers that it can recover while at the same time realizing that the way humanity is addressing climate change, that's unlikely. It's pretty disheartening. I really fear for what it's going to look like in 5-10 years.

"Snow capped mountains" is exactly what I thought of on my dive earlier today, awful.