Unhappy Earth Day

[Doctorfish]

I just got back from LC and the reefs have really deteriorated from last year, presumably due to last summer's inordinately hot weather and consistent ocean temp of 90 degrees.
The coral is almost all bleached or dead looking. It is hard to say how much recovery is going to take place, given that it is already six months since the stress event. I'm no expert on coral but to the uneducated eye, things look awful.

Very depressing.

 

[Alucard]

That is very sad. It sounds like the coral recovered better on GC than LC, and that surprises me.

 

[ScottsdaleSteve]

The coral is almost all bleached or dead looking.

I'm in Little Cayman right now. Wasn't here last year so can't compare, but I don't agree that the coral is "almost all bleached or dead looking." I honestly don't see much bleaching here. I saw a LOT more bleaching in Roatan earlier this year, and more SCTLD in Bonaire (in particular on Bonaire's brain coral). If anything, it looks like the recent hurricane deposited sand on some corals. But to say it's all bleached or dead looking simply ain't true.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

I'm in Little Cayman right now. Wasn't here last year so can't compare, but I don't agree that the coral is "almost all bleached or dead looking." I honestly don't see much bleaching here. I saw a LOT more bleaching in Roatan earlier this year, and more SCTLD in Bonaire (in particular on Bonaire's brain coral). If anything, it looks like the recent hurricane deposited sand on some corals. But to say it's all bleached or dead looking simply ain't true.

Thanks for the report!

Seems clear that the Caribbean in general has some marked declination from SCTLD and bleaching and also clear that there are "mixed" opinions on actually how bad or catastrophic it is. There's only one way to know for sure.......

 

[PatW]

I am at Cayman Brac right now. The gorgonians look pretty good. There are hard corals that are OK but they generally have spots that are looking a bit off. With LC being shallower, maybe the high temps lasted longer.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

Hey Pat. Other than the noted coral impacts......how's the overall diving and "animal" life in general?

 

[PatW]

Hey Pat. Other than the noted coral impacts......how's the overall diving and "animal" life in general?

In the last few years, I have seen fewer hawksbill turtles. But in the spring, I see more loggerheads.

My wife thinks the small fish life is far less numerous. …. Maybe the result of lionfish gorging on small stuff.

We have a lady on the boat who does fish surveys and she is getting 55 species per dive. And that is without moving around that much.

I have just done 6 dives this trip. And you can hit a few dives when no one is home and then get a run of stuff.

Yesterday, we went to a rarely dived site that was not near any houses. Decent fish populations but the corals were not as good as I would have thought. It did have some piller corals which were a bit beaten up looking but were still alive and will probably be decent if the summer is not blazing hot.

 

[Doctorfish]

I don't know where you were diving, ScotsdaleSteve, but where I was on Bloody Bay, Mixing Bowl and Cumber's there was an awful lot of white coral and other areas completely covered by algae, not nearly as much in the way of fans and gorgonians as a year ago. IMO, the changes are dramatic.


On the positive side, I did see hawksbills and reef sharks most dives, at least 4 eagle rays, a loggerhead and a hammerhead.

 

[staggsSevin]

Thanks for the update @Doctorfish - What where the water temps when you were there last week?

I assume the white coral is still healing and hopefully will recover. Did the staff mention if scltd had made its way to the island yet?

 

[Joneill]

I'm in Little Cayman right now. Wasn't here last year so can't compare, but I don't agree that the coral is "almost all bleached or dead looking." I honestly don't see much bleaching here. I saw a LOT more bleaching in Roatan earlier this year, and more SCTLD in Bonaire (in particular on Bonaire's brain coral). If anything, it looks like the recent hurricane deposited sand on some corals. But to say it's all bleached or dead looking simply ain't true.

It was true in late September 2023 when I was in LC.