Caribbean underwater pics

[Lance]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

That's hilarious about your wife (all women seem to clue in eventually about me, what's up with that?!) but yeah gee that's kinda sad about the lionfish and state of the reefs. Only been to Mexico once, 11 years ago now in year 2000 (how did the year 2000 become 11 years ago? What the ... ?) and I remember gorgs being everywhere. I was into reef tanks already back then but I had no idea how hard it was to get gorgs seeing them everywhere like that. Loved watching them whip back and forth in the waves.

The state of the reefs down there is quite sad. We saw very few corals aside from some nice large Brains. I was chatting with a fellow from England who's been coming to the Caribbean for 20 years. He said back then the Elkhorn colonies seemed to go on forever in some spots; and the Sea Fans and Gorgs were like trees. Sponges of all colours were seen everywhere. According to him the hurricanes in the last decade have caused considerable damage as have the absence of urchins which were nearly wiped out due to some disease. Urchins help keep the algae in check and without them the corals were being overgrown. The good news is we saw lots of urchins: apparently they're making a come back. There are still lots of fishes though. We saw all kinds of Atlantic Blue Tangs, Parrotfishes and many Wrasses. Damsels, Angels,
and Triggers, as well as lots of Rays and Turtles. And of course one damn big Barracuda that followed me right to the beach!