Of Coral Watches and Newbie Divers! :-)

Dive 2 & 3 on Wednesday 4th included a coral watch and our new Open Water divers doing their first of two in the day qualification dives. 

Dive 2 Coral Watch 
This dive was super cloudy - but I hope to be able to make the point.  The point of this dive is to ascertain the status of health of the various corals on the reef.  The corals are watched as their colour and behaviours are predictors of how the reef will continue to function and provide food for the resident fish and flooding protection to the surrounding land based communities of Belize, Mexico and Guatamala.

Coral Bleaching is an indication that the reef is stressed and can be caused by a combination of factors. 

1. Physical presence of foreign bodies ( such as fishing line)
2. Water temperatures below and or above optimum thresholds
3. Salinity levels
4. Acidification of the oceans.
5. Pollution levels of sediment, phosphates and increased algae blooming

All of which (amongst other reasons) are indicators to a potential loss in sustainable fisheries due to the loss of the organic life forms within the crusty shell of hard corals.

The best way I can find to illustrate the phenomenan of bleaching is to show you evidence from the dive site near Tom Owens Caye

A healthy Lettuce Coral

Started to Bleach.....

Almost Totally Bleached.......

Bleaching on a larger scale on larger corals looks like....

A mound coral on to it's final phases of bleaching

At the end of the day the more that coral bleaches and dies the less chance the zoological part of the coral will be able to re-enter the carbonated shell to continue growth of the reef.

And if the Coral dies where will this Arrow crab and other reef species live?

New Divers - Dive 2 and 3
 
Despite the Viz we were able to welcome Ilmera, Ruby and Emily to becoming Open Water qualified divers. 

Well done them...

She did it!  Well done Ruby :-)

Emily displaying near perfect buoyancy control

Our resident Amercian Russian - Ilmera - also qualified and wants to visit again

A perfect controlled ascent to a safety Stop by (LtoR) Ilmera, Ruby, and Emily - Ladies you were inspirational

Dive 3 - Shore Dive!

A very Shy Spotted Trunkfish

Yes it is!  A Southern Stingray chowing down!

A very camouflaged Yellow Stingray convinced we can't see it! ---- WRONG!

Yes that made a count of 3 Rays in 3 dives...

And then during the night dive we saw 3 more....  A veritable plethora of Rays in one day.

Why didn't I write these few pages of blog on the day.... You try doing 4 dives in a day and see what you do after dinner..?

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - Night Night!