We visited the Stag Party East site on Wednesday the 26th, and it was our last site with the KML crew. This is a mid channel patch reef that is located on the Atlantic side of the Florida Keys. We specifically went to a part of the reef that is a restoration site. At this site, many of us were unable to witness the beauty of this site due the sea sickness provoked by incoming waves. Regardless, we were still able to discuss the conditions of this site and make a list of some of the species that were present here.
When we arrived at this site, it was early in the afternoon and the skies were partly cloudy with a weather temperature of 79 F. During our time here, the boat was being rocked by waves that were about 2 to 3 feet in height. The depth in this area was estimated to be between 12-18 ft. The bottom of this reef consisted of low relief patches of sand, seagrasses, and hard substrate. A lot of the coral that was present here was soft coral, which indicates that this is a high energy site. Because this reef is further from land, it has a tighter nutrient cycle, meaning that there is low nutrients but high productivity.
Looking at the types of fish that inhabited this area, we clearly noticed that smaller fish were more abundant. In the other places that we had previously visited, we saw a variety of sizes and types of fish, but not here. At this site we saw only a couple of large fish, such as the gray/french angel fish and a nurse shark. The reason for this may be that some organisms cannot withstand the high energy that is present at this site. On the other hand, we did see a variety of corals.
No comments:
Post a Comment