South Male Atoll - Turtle Reef

 More hawksbill turtles.

 Pictures from the internet of the type of leopard ray I saw.

A Short History of Nearly Everything, the book I bought John for touring me around Cornwall.

Our recluse.

The rest of the gang on the bow.

A map Aman used to show us where we were going.

Interesting calendar.

The whole group photo.

Wednesday, February 21^st.

Today is the last full day. After breakfast we set sail for another reef with the promise of turtles. We were underway for a couple of hours before arriving. There were already two or three other boats there, so I guess this is a popular spot. 

Again, Aman ferried us to a launch spot where we could get in the water and float back to the boat. We saw a turtle as soon as we entered. As we swam along we saw a number of turtles ‘flying’ through the water and eating the algae off the rocks and coral formations. This reef reflected exactly what I had just read in my I Contain Multitudes book. The reef is in serious trouble as it has been overrun with algae, which apparently smothers the corals and hogs the oxygen. I also saw several dinner plate sized crown of thorns starfish, which are beautiful. They have about twenty blue/purple arms covered in black needle like shapes. However, they are bad for reefs as they settle on a piece and just eat it. I also saw a ray of some sort swimming along below me.

When we got back to the boat, John and I settled into our familiar routine of reading, sunning, napping and talking on the upper deck which we have claimed for ourselves. Lunch was served as we were sailing to the next location.

This was a reef surrounding a very shallow atoll. We were dropped off and floated back. We saw lots of beautiful fish and large areas of damaged or dead coral. Just at the end I suddenly noticed a good sized ray swimming right towards me at the surface. I stopped and looked, and he noticed me at the last second and went under me. I called to John and we swam and followed him for a minute before he disappeared into the distance. Very cool. 

It is clear that the reefs here are in trouble as there is lots of damaged formations, little soft coral and lots of algae in some areas. However, there are still lots of fish, although probably not the numbers there used to be. Unfortunately for us and maybe the reef too, there are very few other types of animals around, we saw no sharks (except a few nurse sharks at that one dock), no crabs or shrimps, one octopus, three rays and one moray eel. And we saw no mammalian species at all, no dolphins, whales or seals. It seems like the biodiversity has collapsed. 

Back to the boat for our last relax up top. Then Aman let us download his videos off his GPro as my camera had tanked. 

Dinner was another surprisingly good meal prepared by our chef in a minuscule kitchen, and then shortly after we were off to bed for the last time in our tiny cabin.