On Roatan, I’ve seen broken windows and plastic pipes break.
One earthquake resulted in some quite noticeable underwater damage.
The placed 140’ wreck Prince Albert, on the CoCoView shore dive, finally developed that big crack amidships after 30 years submerged.
At a very popular dive site, Anka’s Place, the entire vertical face sheaved off, leaving a stark-white substrata exposed. Here on Scuba Board, the Internet Diving Experts proclaimed ‘the end of diving on Roatan’. I am not exaggerating.
Anka’s Place has long since regrown to be a happy verdant wall. But the magic was observable only for the first year. Instantly, the stripped face was covered with Banded Shrimp, the red & white guys. Then every day, other critters found this as their new niche environment,.
The regrowth was started by exploitative critters, followed by flora and then soft corals. I shared a year + of observations with fellow divers who were equally curious. Most divers were bored just by visiting this site during that period, but when you linked the comments and images together, it became fascinating.
In modern recorded observations, there has never been a visible shift in the Ocean’s appearance after a seismic event off of Roatan. Stay tuned.
And somehow, without our help, Anka’s Place re-grew and recovered. We, as humans, are incredibly short-sighted and can not imagine that nature takes her time, but she will have her way.
Nature will prevail.
Watch the Lion Fish resist your annoying efforts.