Bubbles from the Naturalist Jerry's tank - by Jerry Ligon
It is nice to be sitting onsite on the best reef dive site, and again something new has just taken place on our site. Individuals with the enthusiasm and foresight to see that we humans can make a difference, have just completed the installation of artificial reef structures called “Bay Balls” that were constructed during January and installed on Bari, on 25 January, 2006. I was pleased to be involved in helping chose the specific sites where these fifteen structures would be placed. On the 25th, when the giant crane was lowering the 600lb concrete structures over the wall and placing them on the shallow bottom, I was conducting an Underwater Naturalist course and could not wait until the return part of our dive to visit the site. I guess I should have not expected the reef inhabitants to be going ballistic over these potential new homes within one hour after installation, but the expectations will be there after an unknown period of time that it will take for them to “season” and begin to get inhabitants. I will do dives in order to monitor this progression of inhabitants that is known as ecological succession, much like a decimated forest begins to show life within a short time after destruction. The destruction that decimated the shallow water elkhorn and staghorn corals was, of course, the swell that we received from Hurricane Lenny that hit in November, 1999. Surprisingly, the shoreline on Klein Bonaire that is aimed right at Bari is along the north shore line, when Lenny hit this shoreline, it picked up massive amounts of sand off of No Name Beach, carried this load over the channel between Bonaire and Klein, and deposited it on our doorstep. What was not destroyed by the force of the 25 foot waves that bashed Bari, was buried in 3 to 4 feet of fine sand from No Name Beach. Anything trying to make a comeback in this fine sand in the shallows, has an almost impossible task, so the addition of anything that rises above the sand bottom will kindly be taken over by the regrowth process which we who visit Bari will be able to witness.
