Today was the first day diving in Cayman Islands and my breath was taken away at the amazingly healthy ecosystem. I saw big predators such as barracuda and jacks and more rare and endangered animals such as sea turtles and my personal favorite the queen angelfish. Queen angel fish identified by their splendid coloration and forked tails are commonly found throughout the warmer parts of the Atlantic Ocean on shallow reefs but here in the Caymans after talking to some local dive masters are rare for some reason. What made me most excited though was the large abundance of staghorn coral which is found throughout the Caribbean and southern parts of Florida. Staghorn coral as the name suggest looks like the horns of a deer or stag and is a yellowish color with tips of white on the end. The reason the presence of this particular coral makes me excited is that staghorn coral is a threatened species due to warming ocean temperatures causing it to bleach. Even on these healthy reefs far from human industrialization the affects of climate change on these corals was minimal but present as some small sections of the coral had white coloration or were dead covered in algae. However most of the staghorn coral was alive and very abundant which is good because staghorn along with elkhorn and star corals are the hard corals in the Caribbean that build the reef and give it what I call a “base structure.” Without these corals the reef would not be able to build itself and support a healthy ecosystem so seeing these corals here in the Caymans makes me very excited that the reefs here are doing well. Tomorrow I hope to see more rare coral species and I will write about them here.
