Visiting a Dying Reef: West Bay

By Seamus Jameson

Into the water I went.  As I started the day, the routine felt automatic,   As before, once in the water, I put on my fins and made some adjustments.  But this time when I started looking around, I notice things on the reef were quite different, not like the others.  Although the previous reefs I’ve seen so far have seen their share of coral degradation, this reef was noticeably “off”.  As I swam around, I became sad as I saw so many dead or dying corals; these corals were overwhelmingly unhealthy.  Swaths of the reef looked like the surface of the moon. 

To put this in perspective, Dominic and I had gone on a series of dives the day before using scuba tanks. Being under for up to an hour, I was really able to observe the reef.  Healthy coral reef ecosystems have a rhythm.  Every organism is there for a specific reason, and they all have a job to perform.  It’s this system of the collective that maintains a healthy coral reef. While I was observing the reef on my scuba dives, things didn’t seem to happen by chance. It’s hard to describe and almost needs to be experienced. If you look hard enough and really focus on small areas at a time, you can see the interactions going on in the reef. 

Predators were on the prowl maintaining the balance of life. Damsels were protecting their algae “farms” that they’ve investing much time and energy into making. Herbivores are removing the algae and cleaning the coral. Corallivores are making new reefs by eating the coral and depositing it somewhere else. Even some herbivores like parrotfish act as corallivores doing both. This is because they take a bite of coral as they scrape the algae off the coral.  When a coral reef is in sync, it’s noticeable. Or at least to me it is. 

But this unhealthy reef near West Bay was noticeably not in sync.  There weren’t nearly the same number of fish of this reef. The corals were almost all dead or dying. Stony coral disease had really taken hold.   As I was floating on the surface, it was hard not to feel a sense of loss even though I’m just a visitor here. I’ve watched documentaries on coral bleaching or coral degradation. Probably the same exact ones everyone that reads this post have seen. To truly get a sense of the degradation of these reefs, it needs to be experienced first-hand.  This experience in Roatan has been truly eye-opening.  Since I’ve been here, I’ve been reassessing my own role in all of this. I’ve been asking questions of myself as to what small changes can I make. Even if it’s just being more conscience of what I consume or the daily decisions that I make.