[Coral-List] A few photos in series of bleaching recovery and death.

[Melissa Keyes]

Dear Listers,
 
Here are some photos for you.  I'm just beginning to be able to do this, and will be posting more pages.
 
http://mekvinga.tripod.com/series_bleaching_photos/index.album?i=14&s=
 
 
I am sifting through, and trying to make sense of, thousands of photos.  In the past three months, I've been diving four or more times a week in Cane Bay, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. I usually take from 350 to more than 550 shots of corals on each dive.  My camera is a housed Olympus C70-70
 
 I chose Cane Bay because of its' accessability.  It is the only easy beach/shore entry for diving on St. Croix.  The topography, and variety of formations of coral is nice, including  sandy beach, rocky shore, spur and groove to about seven meters, then a wide swath of sand, then more spur and groove corals dropping off steeply to hundreds of meters depth just offshore.  On either side of Cane Bay, the coral cover is generally uninterrupted by sand.
 
Unfortunately, this little bay is also loaded with "tourists", beginning divers, and folks only interested in a seafood dinner.  I would really rather have concentrated on the Salt River Park area, but that is only safely acesses by boat.
 
Cheers,
 
Melissa Keyes,
 
St. Croix, USVI

		
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