No one diving really cares about corals?

[DiZASTiX]

Admittedly a somewhat clickbait of a title, but anyone else think that many divers don't really care about corals, sponges, and sessile inverts? It's all about who can spot the biggest grouper or turtle, or grab the fin of a nurse shark to the point where they bite. Corals are for kicking with fins. There's an Xmas Tree brain coral the size of an ottoman somewhere in Key Largo.

(I usually dive with a randomly-generated buddy, so my experience might be radically different than others, sometimes paired with another, sometimes paired with a couple.) Usually, it's the photographers and staff divers who look at stuff.

I totally get that I'm preaching to the choir here.

 

[Phildago]

Without knowledge about the coral its hard to know what you're looking at. Hard to determine where one ends and another begins. A lot of stuff looks the same or normal, but being familiar with these organisms grows our appreciation. The more we know the more engaged we become and the more we can see.

 

[jeffrey750750]

I would be in awe seeing a real live reef, one day it's a dream of mine

 

[bigdrew]

I haven't gone diving in years. Maybe 12+ now? Either way, I vividly remember your comment being the case back then. I felt that I was the only one looking at the coral, the coral banded shrimp, finding arrow crabs, admiring the huuuuge fields of soft corals, brains, etc.

You are certainly preaching to the choir with your title and the content in this post. But hey, I'm sure many of us are enjoying the sermon. I know I am.

 

[jack_aubry]

Yup dive buddy makes all the difference and why Bonaire is my favorite spot to go in the Caribbean.

 

[ScottR]

Sessile inverts..... I love seeing patches of colorful tunicates weaved in with sponges and nudibranchs crawling about in gorgonia forests.

 

[User1]

As @jack_aubry said above although I'll add two more. Dive master first. Locals second. Experience level of divers on charter third (probably the biggest).

I'm pretty picky so my dive buddy just happens to be my brother in law or daughter. Just depends what diving we are doing but also my niece and nephew also go. All know each others equipment, weight release, etc. So safety is first but that is another topic.

Really when we are out and about on vacation it really does come down to the dive master, locals if a guide is used, and your dive buddy. More importantly though it is also the experience level of the other dives in the charter. 1 dive master herding a bunch of newly certified divers with 2 or 3 advanced, well, you won't be doing the advanced dives which will restrict what you may see.

Also the really good dive masters who care about their reefs won't take newly certified divers to the pristine spots because they don't know how to control their buoyancy. So again, limited.

My point in all of this is that it really does matter who your dive master is and the group you are with regarding their experience.

 

[MattR]

When I dove in the great barrier reef (on a study abroad trip and was my first time diving ever) everyone else with me was just looking for nemo and dorey and I felt like the biggest nerd looking for the biggest clam or sps specimen I could find. Needless to say people were really looking at me weird...oh well they wont ever understand.

 

[Jaebster]

Been diving for about 18 years... 10 years with my wife. We've been to many places diving at least once a year. Sometimes its land/sea trips and sometime liveaboard. I've noticed that people on the liveaboard are more akin to corals and the undersea environment in general, not just fish. Now, the macro photographers on these trips are a different story... most of are in to corals, their colors, polyp extensions, and the habitats they create for tiny inverts and fish. Of course we all love the whale sharks, mantas, and other pelagics. I think it all depends on type of trip you charter.

 

[Mark Novack]

Admittedly a somewhat clickbait of a title, but anyone else think that many divers don't really care about corals, sponges, and sessile inverts? It's all about who can spot the biggest grouper or turtle, or grab the fin of a nurse shark to the point where they bite. Corals are for kicking with fins. There's an Xmas Tree brain coral the size of an ottoman somewhere in Key Largo.

(I usually dive with a randomly-generated buddy, so my experience might be radically different than others, sometimes paired with another, sometimes paired with a couple.) Usually, it's the photographers and staff divers who look at stuff.

I totally get that I'm preaching to the choir here.

I'm not a licensed diver but I dive with PADI schools when I'm in the tropics. I look at everything and love corals and those tiny details. I get excited when I see a shark, a particularly huge angelfish or a school of 1000's of Odonus Niger triggers pass. I enjoyed the company of a big ugly bat fish (Platax) that swam with me for 58 minutes and rubbed on my hand like a cat. Other than the bat fish, the only things I touch are Fungia to turn them upright or garbage which is why I carry a little net bag on my belt.
Mark

 

[Krully]

Admittedly a somewhat clickbait of a title, but anyone else think that many divers don't really care about corals, sponges, and sessile inverts? It's all about who can spot the biggest grouper or turtle, or grab the fin of a nurse shark to the point where they bite. Corals are for kicking with fins. There's an Xmas Tree brain coral the size of an ottoman somewhere in Key Largo.

(I usually dive with a randomly-generated buddy, so my experience might be radically different than others, sometimes paired with another, sometimes paired with a couple.) Usually, it's the photographers and staff divers who look at stuff.

I totally get that I'm preaching to the choir here.

I get your feeling. I’m usually the one “wasting time” because I like to spend a few minutes standing still and looking at the microfauna, inverts and gobies doing their thing instead of just cruising for the big fish.

 

[Billdogg]

I've been certified since 1990. Somewhere around 2000 dives although I stopped logging them around the 1500 mark unless it is something really new/exciting. Uncaring divers have always been a pet peeve of mine. I get that buoyancy control doesn't come easily to many, but at least TRY!!!

I was on a dive in Key Largo - their Christ of the Abyss statue was the "must see" thing for the rest of the (cattle)boat. I stayed underneath the dive boat with my camera the whole time. I saw hundreds of cool little things (I do macro mainly) and was excitedly talking to my wife on the boat afterwards. Everybody else was talking trash about the dive because they didn't really see anything other than the statue and a couple fish. When they heard us taling over the finds from the dive they were all "Where'd you see that? We didn't see anything". I told them that we had never been more than 75 feet from the boat in the shallows. All the really cool stuff we had found they blasted right past in order to see the (unimpressive IMO) statue.

This little guy was directly under the boat. You just had to slow down and LOOK!

 

[Oliver d]

That is why if I go on a diving cruise its always with the same people that I have dived with for years.We can spend a whole dive looking at the small creatures that inhabit the reef,its not that I dont like encounters with sharks or mantas,its just that small things ate more interesting

 

[Phildago]

To further elaborate on my earlier point. I see this with my tank as well. I see a huge difference in how people react to my tank than before I had a ton of beautiful coral, but they still talk about the fish. They see the coral as one whole in the tank. I can even put a magnifying glass in specific corals and point them out very specifically by color and shape. "Do you see the branching red coral with yellow tips and a white base right there? And they'll just say no, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Its an odd phenomenon, but the untrained eye seems incapable of truly distinguishing each piece as speperate from the rock.

To them its like you're talking about shapes in the clouds. Uh yeah, I guess I can see it"

The thing is to us, it's blatantly obvious. "Yeah of course I see the forest fire montipora digitata, what am I blind?"

 

[Neoalchemist]

I just do what I want while diving.
By buddy or the dive master always had to come back looking for me. I would be making friends with a colony of Royal gramma. Yes I meant Royal Gramma. They would all have their own hole about 6 or 8 inches apart but would all inhabit the same say, 10 by 10 section of the reef. I just can't figure out why anyone would dive the reef, then proceed to swim right by everything to see a fish. "We're diving the reef for Christ's sake, look down, its all right there.

 

[AndyinAtlanta]

To be fair, as much as I'd love to look at the corals, a shark or sea turtle is far cooler. I can touch a coral in my own tank (albeit much smaller), when am I going to get the chance to see a shark swimming directly in front of me.

 

[JFD]

Admittedly a somewhat clickbait of a title, but anyone else think that many divers don't really care about corals, sponges, and sessile inverts? It's all about who can spot the biggest grouper or turtle, or grab the fin of a nurse shark to the point where they bite. Corals are for kicking with fins. There's an Xmas Tree brain coral the size of an ottoman somewhere in Key Largo.

(I usually dive with a randomly-generated buddy, so my experience might be radically different than others, sometimes paired with another, sometimes paired with a couple.) Usually, it's the photographers and staff divers who look at stuff.

I totally get that I'm preaching to the choir here.

I guess it depends of who you dive with and personal taste...

I personally look at everything, but do recognise that you need to be extremely proficient with your diving skills to be able to be aware of the environment around you and at the same time check out coral, fish, wrecks, etc.. So, I would expect less experienced divers without special interests to look for what caughts the eye, big fish like groupers, manta ray, sting rays, etc., turtles, etc.. On the other hand if the divers have an interest in reef tanks, that will be a totally different ball game!