Jennifer Marohasy
Last Friday, the water at Outer Rock Reef, northeast of Great Keppel Island, was very noisy.
Two humpback whales! They were chatting, making high-pitched calls and howls.
Were they surprised to see the six of us underwater? We couldn’t see them – but we could hear them. Visibility was maybe 10 metres underwater.
It was a beautiful sunny day at the top, and on the way back to Great Keppel Island we spotted them coming up from the boat. Beautiful.
What I saw underwater was a lot of dead coral, a lot of dead branching Acropora spp. species. Now dead from the bleaching in February and March. I estimate about a third of the coral cover has been lost in the Keppel Islands. But not all corals, but the plate-like Acropora spp. but especially the branching ones, are the ones that are most affected.
On the one hand, it’s hard to witness so much death. But there’s still so much life.
One of the highlights of last Friday’s dive was seeing two Epaulette sharks (Hemiscyllium ocellatum). One of them was on an area of broken and mostly dead coral. My wide angle shot of the shark with my friend Jen taking a photo of it allowed me to appreciate the extent and what all this dead coral looked like in this area at a depth of about 10 meters. And the shark was not easy to spot, its natural color blending in with the algae-infested coral.
Look long enough among the dead coral and you’ll see all sorts of things, including sea slugs. My wide-angle and close-up photos are of a small yellow and green Phyllidia ocellata.
On the corner I saw that scribbled angel fish (Chaeotodontoplus duboulayi) came to me a month ago, when I last swam over this reef on June 20. On Friday, again, the same fish surfaced and peered inside my mask. Until I reached for my camera, and then it swam away.
I put the camera down, and made some whale noises, and the fish turned and looked me in the eye, shaking its head on the other side of my mask. I wish, at that moment, I could convey that it was indeed a beautiful fish, and very brave.
The other particularly beautiful animals I saw underwater last Friday were squid. Four of them, moving in unison, even staring at me at the same time. They did everything as a foursome, evenly spaced.
I checked out the expanding bubble anemone patch (Entacmaea quadricolor). Remember at this dive site – not far from the pier. Where the branching Acropora spp. have lost out, the large algae with the bubble head anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) push through – take over.
Dead coral, heavily colonized by algae, is being replaced by this expanding anemone with black-backed clownfish (Amphiprion melanopus). What is most surprising is that this expanding anemone is still pure white, but is clearly alive and keeping its tentacles clear of algae.
And so, the bleached sea anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) with the help of symbiotic clowns is making the most of the coral’s demise.
In fact, the coral cover on this reef may have decreased significantly, but species diversity is increasing.
I’m so grateful Keppel Divingand especially my friend Jenn (another friend) for giving me so many memories.
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The featured image (top) is of that angelfish, which looks very strange. A squiggly angelfish, Chaetodontoplus duboulayi
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