Today Brent and I figured out how to survey the outer patch of Plate Coral and the inner wall cascades in a single dive. We decided to swim out to the end of the last prominence jutting out from the south point, where the outer patch of coral is and then navigate back into the bay and to the wall where the inner wall cascades are.
Last time I dove on the inner bay coral - a month ago - Water temps were 84.2 degrees, which isn't good for plate coral. I'd gotten hopeful it would be cooler today after yesterday's dives at South Pine Trees where temps were in the 82 degree range. Indeed, today my computer was reading between 80 and 82 degrees at depth, even inside the bay. That's not going to help all the coral that has suffered over the past two months, but it might mean that the worst of this bleaching event is over.
This was my first visit to the out patch of plate coral in over two years-- don't ask... Anyway, another reason I was hopeful for this small but beautiful expanse was that the plate coral at LAX, see report below, was mostly healthy. Outside the bay today conditions seemed similar: some current, deeper water. Here are some pics from this patch of coral and a movie.
Here are the still pics.
Moving back to the east into the coral gardens south of the wall in mid bay. Some of these are finger corals, which have also been hit hard this year.
Here's Brent dragging the float on our way back in.
After a bit we altered our heading to about due north to get out to the wall. We found a lot of plate coral on both sides of the big overhang and here is what we saw as we headed back in along the wall.
Hopefully, it won't get any worse this year than this with cooling water temps settling in this week. But we've had two massive bleaching events in four years. Much of the coral that died off in 2015 is still dead husks or algaed over. I'll continue to document what I see as the future unfolds.
Here's the video from the wall.
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