Yep. I really do tell people to get the fuck off the coral. (Great news is I’m underwater, so they can’t hear my foul language, but the hand signals I give them seem to suffice.)
Even after numerous briefings about the Roatan Marine Park from the shop assistant and dive lead, people seem to not be getting the message. I’m not sure where this mindset of “it’s okay to manhandle or feed creatures, take shells or anything else I find, or be shitty diver and smash the coral to bits…CAUSE I FEEL LIKE IT” came from, but I’m here to put a stop to it.
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| sgt. rika, coral police |
For all ocean swimmers, divers and snorkelers, here are the reasons behind why you should stay off the coral:
1. Um, cause it dies.
I can’t seem to get this across to a lot of people. Coral is a LIVING thing. Living means alive. Living means it can die. It’s super, super delicate and sensitive. If you touch it, it’s probably going to die. Maybe not the whole thing, but that section will die or be more vulnerable to disease. Guess how long it takes to form coral reefs? Well, it grows anywhere from 1/10th of a millimeter to 1mm per year. So those reefs that are thousands of feet high? Hundreds of thousands of years of coral growth. A barrel sponge the size of a person could be close to a thousand years old. Touching or kicking it with your fin and killing it is pretty much like bulldozing a bunch of old historical shit in Rome that’s thousands of years old. Would you do that?
2. Cause when it dies, I lose my job.
There are lots of places in the world where people do not take good care of the reef. Thankfully Roatan and its dive shops are (for the most part) very adamant about divers respecting the reef and the Marine Park rules. But there’s lots of places where coral is dying at a rapid rate due to pollution, human destruction, mechanical destruction and when there’s no reef, there’s no fish, and no diving….and no job for me.
There’s a legendary local divemaster who routinely tells divers and snorkelers that when they are bumping into the reef with their fins or touching or grabbing it with their hands, that they are taking food out of his kids’ mouths. It takes a second for people to realize the link…. if you wreck the reef, he can’t work and he can’t feed his kids. Do you want to be responsible for that?
3. Cause it IS my job.
I don’t just teach people how to dive. I teach people about our marine ecosystem and its inhabitants, and how to interact responsibly with them. I teach people to respect reefs and sea life by ‘taking only pictures and leaving only bubbles’. As dive instructors/divemasters, we are entrusted as caretakers of the reef since it can’t take care of itself and we are the ones bringing all the visitors to see it. The reef can’t tell you, “hey, get your hands off of me you idiot, you’re hurting me!”…so I will tell you instead.
4. Cause it’s not fair for the next generation of people who want to see it.
If you know me in real life, you know I am a huge advocate of living mindfully and trying to leave the earth in at least as good of shape as you found it, if not better. It’s not our place to just do whatever we feel like with no regard of the people who might want to enjoy it in the future. I want to spark an interest of the ocean in people so that they introduce it to their kids, and by the time their kids are old enough to be divers I want the reef to be flourishing, not dead.
5. Cause it can hurt you.
…in all kinds of ways. Hard coral is razor-sharp – it can cut you and leave nasty organisms in the cut. Soft corals can have hydroids growing on them, why have the same lovely stinging cells as jellyfish do. And let’s not even talk about fire coral (okay, fire coral isn’t really coral, but you get the idea).
So please, if you want to enjoy the ocean and its living reefs, please do so responsibly. Remember, you are the visitor in that environment… that means it’s your job to be careful. If you’re a new scuba diver or rusty on your skills, take a refresher or a buoyancy class to make sure you can stay neutrally buoyant. If you absolutely must put a finger down to steady yourself for a photo or in a current, ask the dive lead how to identify rocks/dead coral before you touch any. If you’re snorkeling, use a snorkeling vest and a buddy if you’re not a strong swimmer. Don’t stand up on the coral if you feel uncomfortable or need a rest – turn over on your back and tread water or float, or head back to the boat.
In case you didn’t get what I just said, or want to teach your kids about this subject matter before a cruise or vacation where you’ll be near coral… here is a video song for kids (special thanks to reader Francisco for sending this to me!). I think I also might force some of my divers to watch this:
Don’t take anything (yes, anything, living or dead). Don’t touch anything. Don’t feed anything. Don’t tease or harass anything. And stay the fuck off the coral!!
When the cruise shippers come into West Bay it can be a complete disaster. The amount of times I had to tell people to bug off was insane. LITERALLY standing and jumping on coral? Not cool.
Too late…. copywrote (copywritted….. copywrotened???) it last Tuesday!
😉
Thanks Jean Francois! The last five words don't seem to do it for a lot of people so I figured I'd at least give some reasons as to why I tell people to stay off it. Some people are pretty hard to get across to though.
And I quite enjoy the term 'kicking the corporate lifestyle in the nuts', I am so stealing that!
Hahah – totally agree that humans can mess up everything 🙂 some of us can be such jerks. I feel like I knew that coral reef systems were this delicate even before I moved here and started diving…and that's coming from a landlocked prairie girl. So I don't think people have an excuse!
Hi David – thanks so much for taking time out of your day to read my ramblings and also to say 'hi'!
Yes, the reef in West Bay and West End shows a lot of signs of the serious pressure put on it by having so many divers and snorkelers in the area. A few dive shops not following protocols can ruin it for many, as can uneducated snorkelers heading out on their own.
Great post.
You could have kept it to the last five words to get the message accross
😉
Very much envious of your choice to kick the corporate lifestyle in the nuts, BTW
As an archaeologist, I totally feel you on all these points. And I realize archaeological sites aren't really like a marine ecosystem. . . but I guess the common ground is that basically, humans can mess up everything.
Especially if that everything is fragile, thousands of years old, and attractive to tourists.
Rika, I "discovered" your blog a couple days ago and have enjoyed your journey to and around Roatan. Good stuff. Hope to see you around West End and/or at PBP this spring.
As to corals, a quick snorkle at the south end of West Bay shows what people standing on reefs can cause … Very sad.
Exactly!! I don't know why more people don't know that. Thanks for spreading the word 🙂
Of course corals are alive. This actually made me laugh because when I was in Egypt and we were diving there were two girls arguing whether corals are alive or not and I was like "Hey! Flowers are alive, so are the corals! "
Hi Erika! Yes, been a while. Good to 'see' you too!
Canada is great, water is still cold, but the way I see it is that diving here is better than not diving at all. 🙂 Quite different from coral-rich Roatan sites for sure and the season is really short.
Good to see that you are doing well and enjoying your island lifestyle.
She claims it did, I beg to differ. I could high five anyone who had their arm permanently fixed out to the side too 🙂
Hey Dmitri!! First, HI! How are ya!? Good to 'see' you. Been awhile since our IDC hey? How's Canada…you still diving wrecks in ridiculously cold water 🙂
I really do think a lot of it is just that people don't KNOW. Hard and soft coral looks like a rock or a plant, and you can't really kill either of those just by putting your hand on it. At our shop, we try to be really really careful about the sites we take people to, we're really really thorough in our briefings, and we don't take any shit from people if they don't follow the 'no-touch, no take rule'….you get one warning and then if you clearly do it on purpose again you're done diving with us. Simple as that!
I think sometimes due to some snorkelers having a fear of deep water, and not all snorkelers having skin diving skills, a lot of operations will take them out to places that is WAY to shallow for anyone to navigate. When, after nearly a year of sending snorkelers to a site inside the reef we had specifically for them, I had to assist a weak swimmer and actually went snorkeling there…found out it was only 4ft deep with coral heads going right up to the surface. I changed the 'easy' snorkeling to a different site!!
Did the turtle high five back???
That of course assuming that there are hurricane-damaged reefs around Roatan. If that's not the case, I'm sure a handful of newbie-friendly sites can be found (as in 'it's too deep for you to go, but you can still see it'). I think that it's a part of the job (and job security) to protect the coral as best as possible.
That's a great way to put it, Erika. Most people don't realize how vulnerable coral formations are. Would it work best if we took newbie divers to some hurricane damaged places? That would still give them enough exposure to enjoy the experience while keeping the new damage to a minimum. Most of this isn't intentional, but rather a result of lack of skill. What do you think?
I did my best to avoid it when we were snorkeling, but I still managed to get caught in some in shallow water. But I think it was dead already. Glad you're getting the message out! Very educational and important!
Yeah exactly! Any guides who are encouraging or not stopping this kind of stuff will have fun when their kids can't get jobs because the tourism stopped due to coral death. I do sometimes feel a bit better when people who are smashing about on the reef get some fire coral stings or abrasions…maybe they'll learn from that 🙂
Me neither!! When I see some of these huge structures and try to think about how long it took to get them that large, it blows my mind.
I can't believe how slow it grows! Keep telling those terrorizers to quit it!
Ugh. I so hate when we go out on boat expeditions and see people trampling all over the coral. It drives me even more bonkers when the guides and people working on the reefs say nothing or even encourage people to touch the reef! Like you said, it's your livelihood and it needs to be conserved! I HATE when I see people harassing marine life and picking stuff up… it's times like that when I wish EVERYTHING in the ocean was venomous! 🙂
Hahah – I say fair game if it runs into you on purpose.
After my somewhat joking ending to my dive briefings "and please don't ride the turtles!" I had a guest literally HIGH FIVE a turtle as it went by. Post-dive she said, "but you didn't say we couldn't high five them!" Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.
Not touching anything when I dive is probably the only thing that stresses me out underwater. In a video I have of me with a sea turtle, my arms awkwardly flap as it swims around me and I try not to let it swim straight into me, which i'm sure it was about to do a couple of times. It gets really close and just doesn't give one single shit.