The Caribbean Explorer crossed from Statia to the island of St. Kitts, about six miles, early this morning. St. Kitts, short for St. Christopher, is another old volcano. Large sugar cane fields can be found on this island. Today we explored the reefs of St. Kitts, where we saw fish traps underwater. Local fishermen make traps out of sticks and chicken wire. (Wire mesh used in chicken coops.) They put some fish heads and guts in the traps, then drop them in the sea. Fish swim through narrow passageways into the traps to get the food. Once inside, they can’t get out. These traps catch all kinds of fish, even moray eels! Underwater the reefs are surrounded by the sandy sea floor. Sea grasses grow in sparse patches on the sand. These grasses are called eel grass because they look like short, skinny eels. Karen found a Queen conch (pronounced "conk") snail eating the grass. (This is the kind of shell that divemaster Steve blows like a trumpet to announce our dives.) Conchs are caught by local fishermen and sold to island restaurants for tourists to eat. Conchs are kind of chewy and don't have much flavor. They’re kind of like eating rubber bands! We don’t see many fish on the coral reefs here. But the really disappointing thing is that most of the reefs are covered with underwater plants called algae. Unfortunately, as the algae grows and covers the reefs, it can kill the corals. Corals need sunlight to grow. If the algae blocks the sunlight from the corals they will die. Normally, coral reefs have some algae growing among the corals. But usually the algae doesn’t grow enough to cover the corals, because it’s eaten by fish and sea urchins. We don’t see many sea urchins or fish nearby, however. They’ve probably been caught. Thus the algae has the opportunity to grow and cover the reef. Also, just as fertilizer helps plants grow faster on land, it helps plants grow faster underwater. St. Kitts has a lot of agriculture. When it rains (and it rains frequently in the Caribbean) fertilizer on the crops is washed from the land into the sea. Fertilizer makes the algae grow faster. As we swim across the reef, we spy two big eyes looking out from under a coral ledge. It is a pufferfish, also called a balloonfish! Pufferfish have sharp beak-like teeth for eating crabs, lobsters, and snails. The conch we saw is safe from the balloonfish because its shell is too thick for the balloonfish to break. As we approach the pufferfish, he seems scared of these big, strange-looking sea creatures. He puffs up full of water and looks like a funny soccer ball with nails sticking out of it. Our dive computers show us that we are getting low on air, so we leave the curious-looking balloonfish and return to our ship. |
The island of St. Kitts is another old volcano. St. Kitts is bigger than Saba and Statia put together.
This is one of the fish traps we saw. Local fishermen leave traps on the bottom of the sea for a few days, then pull them up, filled with fish to cook and eat.
Karen finds a queen conch eating the eel grass. Its shell is covered with algae.
The coral reef covered with algae. The red, green and brown color is algae, growing over the reefs and covering the corals. You can see some large corals sticking out from the algae.
The balloonfish is puffed up full of water. Being puffed up makes the fish hard for large fish to swallow and eat. |
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December 21, 2000
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