Coral Bleaching Thailand

[Arizona]

Actually the vis was petty good on the Khraam last weekend. About 10m. Really nice dive. Hope it is good in Sameasan this weekend as these will be my last dives before moving to Japan.

 

[LantaSam]

Heard this interesting radio news report about the Indonesian bleaching (and die-off) yesterday:

Ooops - not allowed to post urls yet...

May I suggest you Google "Massive Coral Die-Off Reported In Indonesia - NPR" to hear the report - it's shocking.

 

[Arizona]

Sam,

Thanks for sharing the NPR link for "Massive Coral Die-Off Reported In Indonesia - NPR" . It does address the issue and sadly brings it close to 'home'.

I am a big NPR fan as well.

 

[limbo]

Was diving the Southern point of Koh Tao today (Shark Point and Ao Leuk) and the water temperature didn't exceed 29C.

Shark Point looked fairly well, my guesstimate would be maybe 10% bleached and a lot of recovering going on.
Ao Leuk was slightly more bleached bit it seemed a lot of recovery was going on as well.

 

[ayeshacantrell]

Some parts are worse than others its true. I swim at Aow Leuk a few times a week and its great that there has been recovery - I even saw a shark there the other day which I havent seen for months. Shark Island has been somewhat spared.

Chumpn, Sail Rock and Southwest have seen less effect and what was effected mostly seems to be recovering.

Clearly its the shallower sites that have seen the biggest impact however recovery is evident everywhere which is very pleasing.

The water temp did get bathwater warm but we just seemed to get stormy weather in time (hopefully) for the water to cool and the chop to pick up....we didnt really have any monsoon and water was flat so the sea just simmered.......

Only time will tell

 

[Quero]

Excerpt from Phuket Gazette, Aug 21, page 2:

Research surveys mark coral recovery
Researchers at the Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC) at Cape Panwa say a return to normal water temperatures appears to be helping local coral reefs recover from the bleaching effect that has done so much damage in the region this year.
....
Coral reefs at Phi Phi Island have now recovered almost 50% overall, but the staghorn coral has yet to show much improvement. I think it will take about three or four years, because the damage was quite extensive, he [PMBC biologist Niphon Phongsuwan] said.

 

[BlueSkies]

Some observations from 6 dives on aug 16 and 17 at racha-noi, dokmai, phi phi, shark point and king cruiser sites:

- very few small fish, most of them are damsels
- goby/pistol shrimp combo's; used to be all over the place. seen one (1)
- clownfish seem to have abandoned their hosts. I don't know if the anemone counts are normal but i do know they used to be occupied.

- over 90% of hard corals dead
- a small percentage, say 2-4, bleached; i.e.: not dead yet
- one healthy large plate coral
- one largish acropora colony with healthy growth tips but had been dying from the sides. seems to have halted.
- no living brains. at all.

- stenopus hispidus: one pair
- tridacna: possibly one

- seriatopora hystrix: none
- galaxea fascicularis: none
- goniopora, alveopora: none
- blastomussa: none
- tubipora: none
- tubastraea coccinea (non-symbiotic): lots of very small colonies, but in a sorry state
- tubastraea micrantha: healthy colonies, just not a lot of them


My last dives here were about 3 years ago. This did not look good. Not at all.

 

[Quero]

Here's a new news item. It mentions the damage in Thailand and neighboring areas, but it concerns the spread of the phenomenon eastward into the middle of the Pacific near Hawaii. This spread was forecast in the NOAA links I posted earlier. Sad to see that the forecast may actually be realized.

 

[Arizona]

I agree! The map predictions are frightening. At least we are over the worst of it for the season.

 

[Bowmouth]

Sam,

Thanks for sharing the NPR link for "Massive Coral Die-Off Reported In Indonesia - NPR" . It does address the issue and sadly brings it close to 'home'.

I am a big NPR fan as well.

I'm in Indonesia right now and just did a couple of weeks worth diving between Lembeh Straits in North Sulawesi and Tobelo in Halmahera.
The water temps were constantly 29-30 degrees Celcius, occasionally 31 Celcius at the surface. There was some bleaching at some sites but nothing what I call "major".

I've dived Indonesia quite a bit in the past and have never been this comfortable under water. I still needed my 7mm full suit but dived without my hooded vest.