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Dec312007

Reefer madness

Filed under Uncategorized by andrew wolfe at 11:01 am

Much as I love snow, sometimes it’s good to get away someplace warm. It’s especially good when that place includes a beach, palm trees, a coral reef, good and plentiful food and drink, and the company of those most dear.

My folks took us all to Mexico for Christmas this year. We swam, snorkeled, soaked up sun and celebrated Christmas by visiting the ruins of a 700-year-old Mayan city. We stayed at the Akumal Beach Resort, which is quite grand enough but without being as glitzy as some of the others along the Riviera Maya (the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan).

I’ve never been keen on swimming, probably because I’m not all that good at it. I like snorkeling a lot, though. Give me salt water for buoyancy, a mask and things worth seeing, and (of course) a tube to breathe through, and I can swim for hours. Fins are fun, too, if you want to cover a lot of territory, but I found I got a better workout without them.

The reef was just a few strokes swim out from the resort beach. We saw sting rays, spotted eels and scores of different species of fish… it seemed as though I spotted something new every time I went out.

We quickly learned to stay out of the most shallow areas. It’s important to avoid touching coral, but both my father and I got stings on a hand from accidentally brushing up with sea urchins while swimming. The pain was significant but short-lived, but the neurotoxin (or whatever those things are packing) left our fingers numb for a while.

The green and loggerhead sea turtles favored deeper waters, with sand and sea grass rather than coral. They seem to spend their days grazing on the sea bottom, occasionally swimming up for air, and gazing coolly back at the snorkeling tourists. We didn’t see any real behemoths, but several were at least as large as manhole covers. We were told the area where the turtles hang out and breed is protected, though human access didn’t seem restricted at all.

We also saw large swaths of dead coral, bleached white and crumbling. The area has been hit hard by hurricanes in recent years, and that probably accounts for much of the damage but it’s also a fact that global warming (the seas are getting warmer, too) has begun to kill off coral around the world. Coral reefs are among the richest and most beautiful habitats on the planet, so I suggest seeing them while we can… and saving them if we can. Just watch out for those spiky black balls!