Hawaii vs. Florida Keys: How Wildlife is SO Different

    Ahh how peaceful it is to be diving and snorkeling through the water and seeing so many different species of fish and coral.  Until suddenly you get hit with nausea and you are vomiting over the side of the boat like I did today, but it still did not stop me from venturing into the water to see all the wildlife.
     My family had taken a vacation to Maui, Hawaii recently and we decided to go snorkeling because the hotel had said we could see a variety of fish and sea turtles.  After waddling to the water in our fins and struggling to walk out far enough, we started to explore what was around us.  Sadly, we were devastated by how damaged the corals were and how so many had lost their natural shape and color.  We found out that some chemicals in sunblocks were killing all the corals, which could be why there were so little fish and no seagrass.

     While we were under the water we were still able to see a few fish and coral.  At the time I had no idea what these fish were, but after taking this class and learning the names of all the tropical fish it was fun to look back at my old pictures from Hawaii and actually identify some of the fish we had learned in the classroom.  In Hawaii, we were able to see sergeant majors, blue tangs, a doctorfish, a very unique rainbow colored fish, and even a sea turtle.  Unfortunately because the corals were so damaged, I was not able to identify them properly from the old pictures I had taken.                                                     

 

 















After snorkeling today I was able to see so much more under the water.  I was able to see many sergeant majors, Bermuda chubs, barracuda, grunts, a large grouper, a gray angelfish, blue tang, bar jack, blue striped grunt, yellowtail snapper, blue head, nurse shark, and a sea turtle.  The corals were much easier to identify in the Florida Keys because they were not damaged at all.  The corals that I could see were sea rods, sea fans, stag horn, tube coral, boulder star coral, brain coral.  There was also many different seagrasses that you could see in the Florida Keys, including mostly turtle grass.

For more information about the diving location visit: www.captainslate.com
For more information about how sunscreen can affect corals visit: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/travel/most-sunscreens-can-harm-coral-reefs-what-should-travelers-do.html
#VomitCentralOnTheBoat #ItWasNotFun