The place have all of the long-spined black sea urchins gone?

I’m certain that you simply’ve heard this phrase quite a lot of occasions over your years of diving: “You should have seen these reefs back in the day.” I’m responsible of claiming It myself, many occasions over my previous 52 years of being an authorized SCUBA diver. 

Over the years I’ve noticed the extraordinary modifications which have befallen the as soon as wholesome and exquisite reefs, in my entrance yard, within the South Atlantic waters of South Florida. In 1974, once I first began SCUBA diving, and have become licensed, it was a really completely different world, above and beneath the ocean. But for now, I shall persist with beneath the ocean. 

My first few hundred dives had been among the many reefs of South Miami and the Upper Florida Keys. Each dive was a showcase of pure magnificence, of rainbow-coloured colleges of snapper, parrotfish, set off fish, damsel fish, fairy basslets, and so many different vibrant and fantastically colored species of reef dwelling fish. There was a unending show of quintessential ocean magnificence. Visibility was usually high to backside, and horizontally between 100 and 125 ft.  

Huge shoals of fish had been plentiful. It was not unusual to see pods of dolphins on in the future, and a faculty of Scalloped Hammerheads on the subsequent. Upstaging the entire visible delights had been the magnificent and wholesome coral reefs. Along the southern Florida Coast of the Tri-County space (Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade) there have been three stunning reef strains, paralleling the coast, intertwining in an intricate “tongue and groove” sample.

Further South within the Florida Keys (Monroe County), the reef strains morphed into smaller coral heads (we referred to as them Bahama heads), that projected up from the sandy ocean ground in the direction of the floor. Each Bahama head acted as its personal ecosystem. Cresting these coral heads, there have been gigantic and gorgeous Elkhorn and Staghorn Corals, hovering up from the reef, some simply barely skimming the floor at low tide. Also, encrusting the coral heads had been staggeringly giant groupings of yellow mind coral, purple sea followers, and orange sea whips, caressing and waving within the currents and including a good looking biorhythm to those magnificent reefs. 

Everywhere alongside these nice carpets of reef had been huge armies of Long Spined Black Sea Urchins (Diadema antillarum). Back then we considered them as an always-present nuisance. Their lengthy projecting spines simply penetrated human pores and skin, even by means of gloves or wetsuits.