Photos/videos Philippine coral reef

[Mark Gray]

I suddenly feel an urge to visit the Philippines....... Thanks for the pics!

Notm to far for you And Thailand has great dive spots too

 

[bram33]

Sorry guys but I was away on holiday to see some bigger marinelife!

Not all the reefs where in great shape. These next pictures are from a reef on the other side of the Island. As you can see less Coral, less fish and a lot of Crown of thorn starfish.

I think they where the number one killer of the corals on the reefs that I have seen.

 

[bram33]

 

[bram33]

Clams! Not a whole lot of clams where present. On the house reef there was only one giant clam. Mainly due to overfishing.

Depth 1. 5 meter, temp 28.1

Depth 20 cm, temp between 29 and 32 degrees. These where the most common species. All very shallow.

Depth 18 meter, temp 27.5

Depth 25 meters. temp 27,5. You can see the change in Coral diversity. At this depth, less SPS Coral and more LPS. Also fields of anacropora.

 

[Jboulerice]

Man where I went we saw way more premium corals... I went and did island hoping in caramoans and I couldn’t believe the colors... I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow but I couldn’t believe real corals that are colorful where so plentyful...

We did see massive populations of crown of thorns devastating parts of the reef.

Having snorkeling all my life in Florida and visiting the Bahamas it’s hard to visualize real colorful reefs exist; my friends who have dived in Australia have showed me pictures that look equally disappointing!

 

[Sabellafella]

Thank you for sharing, enjoyed viewing these photos!

 

[bram33]

Man where I went we saw way more premium corals... I went and did island hoping in caramoans and I couldn’t believe the colors... I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow but I couldn’t believe real corals that are colorful where so plentyful...

We did see massive populations of crown of thorns devastating parts of the reef.

Having snorkeling all my life in Florida and visiting the Bahamas it’s hard to visualize real colorful reefs exist; my friends who have dived in Australia have showed me pictures that look equally disappointing!

Dissapppointing… Definitely not. Different.. Yes!

Although not the most colourful reef with ´premium´ corals, The diversity on this (the pictures without the COT's) reef is very high. For fish, inverts and corals. More pictures will follow and support this!

Really interested to see your pictures!

 

[Mark Gray]

Great pictures are the clams eaten down there? That's what has happened to the clams around Fiji

 

[bram33]

Great pictures are the clams eaten down there? That's what has happened to the clams around Fiji

Yes the area is pretty heavy overfished. Which means almost all tridacna, tritons trumpet and larger fish are gone.

 

[Jboulerice]

Dissapppointing… Definitely not. Different.. Yes!

Although not the most colourful reef with ´premium´ corals, The diversity on this (the pictures without the COT's) reef is very high. For fish, inverts and corals. More pictures will follow and support this!

Really interested to see your pictures!

Finally got around to digging these out of the archive drives enjoy my spring boarding off your photos! But always great to share so other people can get excited!

We snorkeled in caramoan islands and also our resort, which was trying to restore their coral reefs with some dude's project to build artificial reef's and somehow use electrical current to facilitate coral growth (I FIND VERY VERY HARD TO BELIEVE)

These are the reef from our resort at tugawe cove:

You can see their "Solar powered reef" which I call shenanigans on lol.

And here's the good stuff we saw:

 

[Jboulerice]

And the real problem see for the PI's coral reefs is crown of thorns.... IF I was part of their environmental team this would seem like wiping them out completely and offering locals money to capture them / maybe even eat them if possible... If something isn't done soon I think bleaching events are at the lowest of concerns.

That and the rampant pollution present in the PI, it was clear even the resort trying to rehab their reef had no clue how to even keep construction garbage out of their lagoons. Its pretty clear, culturally being responsible with trash (not saying America is any better) isn't the strongest over there.... but would love to see more thought going into smaller scale waste solutions for coastal villages at the very least.

 

[Mark Gray]

And the real problem see for the PI's coral reefs is crown of thorns.... IF I was part of their environmental team this would seem like wiping them out completely and offering locals money to capture them / maybe even eat them if possible... If something isn't done soon I think bleaching events are at the lowest of concerns.

That and the rampant pollution present in the PI, it was clear even the resort trying to rehab their reef had no clue how to even keep construction garbage out of their lagoons. Its pretty clear, culturally being responsible with trash (not saying America is any better) isn't the strongest over there.... but would love to see more thought going into smaller scale waste solutions for coastal villages at the very least.

Yes I agree but they have believe it or not gotten better. 20 years ago cyanide was getting the reefs really badly I think the waste problem is very bad due to population incresses and at least in the Philippines lack of money. Thanks so much for sharing Love that part of the world though