Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The House Reef



It cannot be denied that I am a seasoned snorkeler. As a child growing up in the Mediterranean I would run down to the sea every day after school to see how the fish and my beloved octopus were getting on. As a teenager in the Middle East, I would spend months on end in the water. Now, after all this training, I’ve reached the pinnacle of my snorkelling career and gone professional by working as the Resident Marine Biologist and EarthCheck coordinator at Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa. This is why, I believe it means something when I judge the Hadahaa house reef to have delivered the best snorkelling I have ever experienced.
The thing that first strikes you about our reef is the sheer volume of coral, a thick tangle of different species, all tussling for space growing one on top of the other, completely obscuring the seabed.  Thousands of brightly coloured reef fish flash in front of your eyes like jewels, going about their daily lives as eager as children in a playground. The coral itself has a pallet of deep browns and greens, which to the untrained eye may seem plain, but for me is heartening. The darker the colour of the coral, the more algae there is living in symbiosis with the polyp. The Algae photosynthesizes, providing nourishment for the coral in exchange for protection. The polyp itself is usually transparent or only slightly tinted, while its skeleton is made of calcium carbonate making it bright white. This means that a coral with light pastel shades is lacking in algae, and the coral on our reef is teaming with the stuff (as much as 30,000 cells per cubic millimetre). 
On a day like today, there is not a cloud in the sky and the sea is so flat it looks like tin foil. The sunlight glides effortlessly through the water and dances on the reef making even the drabbest rock sparkle and glitter. The water is heavy with fish, merrily nibbling away or surveying their domain. A gentle crackling can be heard, reminding you of the amount of activity that goes on unseen below you. I love to watch the electric blue Cleaner Wrasse attending to the larger fish, flittering over their scales and under gills to rid them of dead skin and unwanted parasites. The client hovers in suspended animation with a look of pure ecstasy enjoying their underwater spa treatment, until the Cleaner Wrasse digs too deep, and without warning, is ushered away with a stern flick of the tail. 
A Parrot Fish enjoying his exfoliating spa treatment
For seven months now I have been examining what lives on the reef and what happens subsurface. Sharing the spectacle with our guests and the look of wonder on the faces of first-time snorkelers is hard to beat. Every day I see something new or extraordinary and with any luck the trend will continue for years to come.