Cayman Islands update

[Scuba]

For anyone planning a SCUBA trip or even a snorkeling trip to Cayman, do yourself a favor and wait a few years. DH and I are there now and we have been shocked at how little life we’ve seen on the reefs, or even in the deep blue off the walls. Our divemasters tell us that it’s a combination of two factors - extended period of very warm water last summer, for double the length of time summer normally lasts, and a big storm in February that covered up a lot of the coral with sand.

It’s sad. Some other divers at our resort told us they were here two years ago and the contrast is very dramatic. Perhaps if conditions are different it will improve over the next few years, but now is not the time for it.

 

[fosterscik]

That's depressing. We were in Roatan last November and the ocean temperatures were very high. There was lots of bleaching, but probably 50% of the coral looked healthy and the divemasters assured us the reef would recover quickly. We are returning there in May and we have our fingers crossed that the reef is at least as good as late last year (and hopefully a little better).

 

[Rianne]

Oh no, so sad. I was there in the early 80s on spring break. Remote, huge crabs on the beach, swam with barracuda, and coral was filled with life and color beyond the imagination. One major resort, we stayed in a private house and rented a room. Mostly banks in the downtown. Sea turtles, conch shells. That is depressing news.

 

[sengsational]

Last time I was there, reefs you could swim out to were near dead, whereas in the 80's they were beautiful. But that's because 5 gallons of sunscreen are rinsed off of 10,000 cruise ship tourists daily. I used to dive there because it was cheap...you could rent just a tank and swim out to a wall dive. But interesting the walls are bare now. I wonder if they have the causes right. I went down there for twenty-odd years and never encountered any bad year.

 

[Scuba]

Last time I was there, reefs you could swim out to were near dead, whereas in the 80's they were beautiful. But that's because 5 gallons of sunscreen are rinsed off of 10,000 cruise ship tourists daily. I used to dive there because it was cheap...you could rent just a tank and swim out to a wall dive. But interesting the walls are bare now. I wonder if they have the causes right. I went down there for twenty-odd years and never encountered any bad year.

There may be other causes, but some folks who were on our trip and had just been to the same resort 2 years ago said the difference was night and day. Therefore I'm guessing that the heat last summer plus the big storm they had in February are the two primary causes.

 

[2017ish]

Were you on Grand Cayman or the sister islands? (Don't know if that would make a difference, but the development pressures are different.)

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

This is a global phenomenon, according to an NOAA researcher.

The sweltering seas are proving perilous for the world’s corals, living structures that support roughly 25 percent of all known marine species. When stressed by rising temperatures, corals expel the vibrant photosynthetic algae that live in their tissues and provide them with food, laying bare their white skeletons. This algal evacuation is known as bleaching, and it can be fatal for corals (SN: 8/9/23).

Since early 2023, coral bleaching has become so widespread that NOAA has confirmed it’s a global coral bleaching event, the fourth such event since mass bleaching was discovered in the 1980s. “From February 2023 to April 2024, significant coral bleaching has been documented in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres of each major ocean basin,” said NOAA coral reef ecologist Derek Manzello in College Park, Md., said in a statement released on April 15.

Three reasons why the ocean's record-breaking hot streak is devastating