Charred
Contributor
My wife and 2 friends were in Cozumel last week. We were there in April this year as well as April last year, etc...
Additionally, for years I very successfully maintained a reef tank that grew stony corals from traded fragments. I consider myself very familiar with coral health and growth.
All of us agreed the drop in reef health from April to November was staggering. The brain corals are gone. They are just skeleton now with most covered in coralline algae (it looks blue but could be a very thin layer of the typical purple). Many of the hard stony corals look heat stressed to me. The water was 84F. I cant imagine what it was in the summer. 86F? 87F would probably cause a major bleaching event.
Much of the fire coral is completely bleached. It took me 2 days to find a non-bleached one to point out what a live one looks like.
On top of the heat stress, the sargasum was in deep piles in the dead zones on the reefs. Think of how leaves collect out of windy areas. The sargasum must be sinking and then its collecting in dead current zones. I found one pile at least 2 feet thick. It is just sitting there decaying release nutrients back into the water. Speaking of nutrients, there is just way too much nuisance algae on the reefs. The decaying sargasum is just going to feed this. These reefs are definitely under full assault from temperature and nutrients.
Lastly, boats were cheating the the closed reefs. The one time we dove Punta Dalila dropping in right at the pier there were multiple boats 100s of yards further south of us. I'm not suggesting they are hurting the reefs but they are cheating.
Hopefully the water in the Caribbean cools soon and the corals get some relief. But that sinking sargasum is a new issue an I am unsure what to think about that.
Additionally, for years I very successfully maintained a reef tank that grew stony corals from traded fragments. I consider myself very familiar with coral health and growth.
All of us agreed the drop in reef health from April to November was staggering. The brain corals are gone. They are just skeleton now with most covered in coralline algae (it looks blue but could be a very thin layer of the typical purple). Many of the hard stony corals look heat stressed to me. The water was 84F. I cant imagine what it was in the summer. 86F? 87F would probably cause a major bleaching event.
Much of the fire coral is completely bleached. It took me 2 days to find a non-bleached one to point out what a live one looks like.
On top of the heat stress, the sargasum was in deep piles in the dead zones on the reefs. Think of how leaves collect out of windy areas. The sargasum must be sinking and then its collecting in dead current zones. I found one pile at least 2 feet thick. It is just sitting there decaying release nutrients back into the water. Speaking of nutrients, there is just way too much nuisance algae on the reefs. The decaying sargasum is just going to feed this. These reefs are definitely under full assault from temperature and nutrients.
Lastly, boats were cheating the the closed reefs. The one time we dove Punta Dalila dropping in right at the pier there were multiple boats 100s of yards further south of us. I'm not suggesting they are hurting the reefs but they are cheating.
Hopefully the water in the Caribbean cools soon and the corals get some relief. But that sinking sargasum is a new issue an I am unsure what to think about that.
