Bonaire's Reefs This Summer: Undercurrent 09/2024

Bonaire's Reefs This Summer

from the September, 2024 issue of Undercurrent

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Bonaire's Reefs This Summer ...

With most of our reader reports about Bonaire describing dead coral and disappointment, we wanted to get an opinion from someone who knows Bonaire reefs well. Here is what she has to say.

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We spent eight weeks at our little house in Bonaire, from late May to late July, and our view of the reefs changed over time. Having institutional memory can be a curse, as we have been diving Bonaire since 1994. At first, I was shocked by the effects of SCTLD (stony coral tissue loss disease), a bacterial pathogen that has killed many stony corals. SCTLD seems to affect maze, brain, pillar, large star, and flower corals most seriously, perhaps because their polyps are relatively large and open. The reef in front of Captain Don's Habitat was studded with many large brain corals, for example, and most of them have died and are now covered with dark algal growth.

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