With the help of Kona Honu Divers I was able to dive on and photograph the extensive fields of Plate Coral at LAX, a north Kona dive site that is rarely visited because it is out or range of the local charters and very difficult to access for shore diving. So Kona Honu scheduled the trip on their fast, new boat, Honu Lele, and away we went.
Following the depressing results I found at Honaunau last week, my expectations were low for the health of this huge expanse of gorgeous pillared plate coral, covering at least 10,000 sq ft of reefscape. But when we dropped and I saw my computer reading 83 degrees – a degree and a half cooler than I'd been getting anywhere south, I was suddenly hopeful, and the hope was warranted. Over the entire expanse of coral I found only a very few small instances of obvious bleaching, as small patches of white on the brown plates. All the rest looked healthy to my non-marine-biologist eyes.
Here are a few pics of what I found showing the patches of whitening. I'll follow with more pics of healthy reef, and at the bottom there's a video of the site.
Now here are the rest of the shots showing healthier coral, and hopefully, the fantastic expanse of these fields of pillared plate coral. I'd give the scientific name but I still can't tell the difference between porites Rus and porites Monticulosa. It's one of those two.
Here's the video
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