Brent and I had planned to document the state of the patch of plate coral near the mouth of Honaunau Bay today. That was until I got there at 7:05 am and found every parking spot already filled and the $5 lot closed. Must be Ironman. OK, lets do Ke'e, except that the road was too bumpy for one of the cars.
Plan C: Let's go to Pahoehoe Beach park, there's plate coral there! And so we did.
Right as we dropped I noticed temps at 85 degrees; further out at around 60 feet it was still 84 degrees. Very warm, and so when we got out to 64 FSW, about half an hour slow swim west along the wall, I spotted the patch of coral I was looking for. It's on a little bump to the left in the sand flats. And it was bleached, as you can see from the stills and the movie.
Here's the video
There were other instances of bleaching of lobe and finger coral. Here are the pics.
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