The reef at Lime Cay

I'm at Lime Cay on a perfect day for the beach. The tide is out and the ledge of shoreline rocks are revealed like a wave made solid.

I find it miraculous that the inexorable surge of the sea could carve like the most talented of artists, moulding a wave sculpture out of rock.

Between the rocks and the beach, tide pools lie flat as glass in the sun. Crabs sidle into holes and brittle stars hide under rocks, showing just the tips of their tentacles.

I wave my fingers near the tendrils of a tube worm; it zips inside its tube, an underwater "Shame My Lady". Damselfish dart around frantically. I watch them for awhile; I can't imagine what they're doing, their behaviour seems frenzied, purposeless. I refer to my reef fish book and learn the damselfish are cultivating underwater gardens for food, defending what amounts to their farms from other herbivores. The original fish farmers, I think, smiling to myself.

Reading on, I learn damselfish are among the most aggressive fish in the sea. It's a good thing they're so small, I think, we humans wouldn't be able to frolic in the sea if even moderately-sized fish had the mind-set of the damselfish. A SCUBA diving friend says a damselfish bit his ear once; that's a rash little fish to attack a creature maybe 30 times its size.

I swim out to the remnants of the coral reef on the windward side of Lime Cay. I notice hundreds of juvenile black sea urchins, tiny ones, settled in the crevices of rocks, waving their black spikes in the imperceptible current. The scientists call these Diadema antillarium and they are vital contributors of reef ecology. They're grazers and they clean algae off the reef.

Connection

In the early 1980s, there was a massive die-off of Diadema in the Caribbean, probably as a result of a viral disease. As with all things environmental, everything is connected to everything else. Sewage and agricultural run-off in the sea started algae growing on the living corals. Overfishing reduced populations of other herbivores, especially parrot fish. Without Diadema and the parrot fish, algae grew unchecked, smothering the coral. Jamaica's reefs are now a case study in the sad annals of dying coral reefs all over the world.

So on this Saturday morning I'm happy to see all the baby black sea urchins, but I fear not even their efforts can save the reef at Lime Cay. There is some living coral, I see domes of brain coral, and some fire coral. But mostly the algae is winning. Each outcrop of coral has its own crown of algae and I see signs of bleaching. What's bleaching? The coral polyps, tiny creatures like anemones, harbour microscopic algae called zoomanthellae. The algae provide food for the coral through photosynthesis and when under stress, the coral polyp expels the algae. As it is the algae which gives coral its distinctive colours, the coral then turns whitish, or bleaches, slowly starving to death.

Hundreds of people visit Lime Cay every weekend. How many have ever seen a brittle star or a tube worm or a damselfish? I wonder. Or noticed the baby sea urchins making a comeback, or the dying coral? I want to sit every Jamaican on the thick, cool sand at the edge of the beach and say: Look. Just look at the richness and fragility of our natural heritage. It's slipping away so fast.

Decay

I'm sad, sitting on the low branch of a sea grape tree, remembering another snorkelling trip to Pigeon Island recently. There the reef was quite dead, destroyed by dynamite, storms and/or anchor damage. And I think about the plans Cable and Wireless has to lay fibre optic cables through what's left of our reefs. According to the Observer newspaper of May 12, Franklin McDonald of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) said, "...except for the cable which, unfortunately, ended up draped on the reef in Montego Bay, cable laying does not have a negative impact on the environment."

I really hope he was misquoted. Think of that statement referring to other things: "If lead hadn't ended up in gasolene, lead wouldn't have had a negative impact..." The point is the cable did end up on the reef. And the NRCA let Cable and Wireless leave it there.

By two o'clock, the tide pools at Lime Cay are warm as soup and all the living creatures hide under rocks, waiting out the searing heat of the day. Will my grand-children (if any) sit with their toes in the sea and watch damselfish making their gardens? On this Saturday, almost half-way through the year 2000, with pollution, overfishing and Cable and Wireless laying cable, it seems distressingly unlikely.

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