Possible southern reef closure

[Scuba_88]

According to this video posted a few links back the SCTLD disease is a waterborne pathogen. The terrifying thing about this is that the cruise ships once again may be helping spread this disease by means of the discharge ballast water. It’s interesting to see that the outbreaks of this disease seems to follow the paths of these cruise ships.

 

[JohnWoods]

So all the divers that booked Iberostar and other southern resorts from October to January are just SOL?

I am staying at the Iberostar at the end of November and diving with Dive With Martin. They have communicated this and said they will be still picking up at the dock there to dive the open sites , so , not SOL but not great to eliminate so many sites at once. As most have said, nobody believes this will change anything and the bacterial spread is a result of cruise ship activity and resorts not properly managing their waste. Why someone decides to punish the divers is beyond me !!! Divers are essential to maintaining reefs everywhere ( eyes and ears witnessing reef damage and spreading the word) and not the ones wearing sunscreen .... that’s the role of all the snorkel tours in the area !!

 

[JohnWoods]

According to this video posted a few links back the SCTLD disease is a waterborne pathogen. The terrifying thing about this is that the cruise ships once again may be helping spread this disease by means of the discharge ballast water. It’s interesting to see that the outbreaks of this disease seems to follow the paths of these cruise ships.

View attachment 541851

I call BS on the number of diver impacts. I've seen some bad divers here and there but the average diver is not hitting the reef six times in 30 minutes.

I agree , sure there are some divers with buoyancy challenges , but on every single dive I have watched parrot fish chomp away continually and always wondered if that’s good or bad for the reef !! Perhaps diver retraining regarding bouyancy and reef respect is necessary these days as there are some who think the reef is theirs for the taking and the dive operations don’t say much in fear of a bad social media review , or even no tip that day !!

 

[cvchief]

Well from the smart local's posts I have been reading, there seems to be an undercurrent of:

'yea, this won't do a thing probably for the dead coral problem, but it will fire everyone up and get attention paid to the Coz reefs and maybe that will find a solution to dead coral that no one else has found'

or possibly, 'this won't do a thing for the coral, but maybe it will fire up enough people to actually do something about real factors that could be contributing, like runoff and what not."

Or possibly "We don't have any reason to think this would help, but hey we are doing something and maybe it will cause some sort of surprise good thing to happen eh?"

And then there is this thing "Coz needs to move to the Galapagos model for conservation"

I don't even know what that means. Someone enlighten me on that? All but 4 of my 400 or so dives are on Coz, so I don't really know how they do it in the 'lesser' places....

 

[cvchief]

I haven't read (all of) the previous 35 pages, but can you tell me how likely it is, that they will open southern reefs by march 2020?

Definitely, probably, but not likely, unless it is. Whatever you will get at least a week's notice of any changes. /sarcasmoff

 

[Christi]

According to this video posted a few links back the SCTLD disease is a waterborne pathogen. The terrifying thing about this is that the cruise ships once again may be helping spread this disease by means of the discharge ballast water. It’s interesting to see that the outbreaks of this disease seems to follow the paths of these cruise ships.

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These are my thoughts exactly - not to mention the waste disposal at sea which drifts throughout the oceans

 

[Damselfish]

I already had a trip booked for November. I checked and my tickets are nonrefundable.

I think most people tend to buy nonrefundable tickets, as they're a lot cheaper. But note that while "nonrefundable" tickets can't be returned for a refund, they often can be changed for a fee. Seems to be $200 nowadays, which may or not be worth it to you depending on the original cost.

 

[AdivingBel]

Or you buy the "new" basic economy that doesn't allow refunds, credits, or exchanges without special dispensation from the "pope." Which you can still get often enough that it doesn't hurt to ask...

 

[JorgeGutierrez]

One Island, Two dive destinations​

As you may have heard, the Cozumel Reefs Marine Park authorities decided to temporarily close some of the dive sites in the southern area of Cozumel, to give our beautiful reefs a little rest, 90 days for now. The measure is set to begin in October the 7th, and they (Marine Park Authorities) haven't set a specific date of aperture, but they'll run some studies to measure the impact the closure had on the reefs in November and later on in January next year.

They've taken this decision so abruptly as a contingency measure due to the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease Florida "White syndrome”, which is a pathogen that kills corals, especially those known as “brain coral”.

The closure goes from Punta Palancar to Punta Chiqueros (East Side). (See map attached) and the closed dive sites are:


West Side

• Palancar Gardens
• Palancar Horseshoe
• Palancar Caves
• Palancar Cuevones
• Colombia
• Colombia Deep
• Colombia Pinnacles
• Punta Sur (devil's Throat)
• Punta Sur Cathedral
• Chun Chacab Reef
• Maracaibo

East Side

• Islote
• Playa Bush (Rasta's)
• El Mirador

Aldora Special Operations Team has been exploring new dive sites outside the marine park for more than 10 years. There are dozens of great sites north of Barracuda, some are well offshore. We have called those the "Aldora Polar Express" which are normal two tank dives for us, at regular prices with normal divers (that we know).

It's our intention to reactivate some dive sites that are good for beginners and intermediate divers, like the Guarderia, which is a beautiful shallow dive with tons of schooling juvenile fish, patch coral reefs that are 50' to 60' deep with a mild current, among many others.

Here’s a list of some of our northern dive sites:

• Barracuda Bolones
• Ledges I
• Ledges II
• Ledges III
• Guarderia
• Gato’s Reef
• Chino’s Reef
• La Loma
• La Loma II
• El Puente
• El Puente II
• Cherna's Reef
• Abadejo's Reef
• Momia’s Reef
• Porky’s Reef
• Tiburcio

Come and explore more new sites with us​

Indeed, those diving elsewhere are welcome, but we have to have personal knowledge of their skills before we take them there. For the most part the Polar Express Dives are not as stressful as Barracuda but given the remoteness we have to have disciplined divers.
You can watch a video of the Polar Express Dives here -
Also, we have been diving the East Side for a while, on the North East we have some dive sites too, you can watch another video, with more information about this here:
Then we have another special operations trip, called the Aldora Adventures, Caves of the Sleeping Sharks. We will only take 4 advanced divers to spend a whole day and eat what we catch during three dives in absolutely pristine conditions. No one else has ever been there and the few we have taken so far are uniquely fortunate.

Please take a look at this video from Pete Bucknell here: -
Best Regards,
Aldora Divers Staff

 

[scrane]

When I was in Roatan the people who ran the marine park were very concerned about water temperature. They suspected that coral is stressed when the temperature reaches 86 degrees. They asked dive operators to monitor and report water temperatures at all sites.
This is a complex problem that probably has multiple contributing factors. Blaming the balloon hat people is easier than taking action on the larger issue of Global Warming and using the ocean as a sewer.