Puerto Rico

[cruzersmith]

Just returned from Puerto Rico. Did some snorkeling there. Turned out to be quite a sad experience for me as a saltwater reef keeper. The reefs were literally quite sad having suffered mass destruction. One reef used to be huge elk horn coral now looked like a huge field of broken bones completely covering the sea floor. Most all the huge dead coral rocks are covered with a thin layer of silt. Some small coral heads dispersed around making a foothold but nothing resembling the enormous reef that used to be. Thus numbers and variety of fish populations were small. Only variety doing quite well with larger numbers were the Puerto Rican blue tangs and a few parrot fish. The few other fish were single sightings of like an adult French angel, a spotted box fish, a couple black spot butterflies and a few bluehead wrasse. Of course the bigger numbers of the Sargent Majors always seem to exist.

 

[Jamie9]

Sadly, I've had that experience at quite a few dives sites over the last ten years. Part of what drew me to this hobby now is wanting to keep a little piece of those reefs alive and thriving.

 

[Tonycass12]

What area were you in? Sounds like possibly rincon? The reef there was devastated by Irma and maria hurricanes years back. The elkhorn colonies used to be the size of small houses in that area. Lots of that reef is dealing with pressure from beachside development and runoff.

 

[cruzersmith]

Yes exactly right. Rincón and Fajardo mostly. Didn’t get in the water at other stops.

 

[Tonycass12]

Yes exactly right. Rincón and Fajardo mostly. Didn’t get in the water at other stops.

I lived in rincon for a winter teaching kite surfing in 2013. Loved it but even back than the reef was not what you would expect. More of your typical Caribbean reef populated with some encrusting lps and the occasional sps like elkhorn and patches of fire coral that aren't even true corals. Tress palms was where you could catch a glimpse of the monster elkhorn but friends told me what the hurricanes did to them, im glad I got a chance to see them beforehand. Its common to catch people spear fishing inside the marine reserve they just dont have the money to pay for enforcement or monitoring it's a sad story replicated just about everywhere you go. More recently all the buildings going up just adjacent to those surf spots is causing a ton of runoff and choking out the corals on the reef.

I hope you at least got a chance to catch some waves while you were around town. Rincon has some of the best surfing waves anywhere in the Caribbean.