After spending last weekend at the Reef-A-Palooza Orlando show we decided to hop on a plane and check out some Caribbean corals in the Dominican Republic. We travelled from the capital city of Santo Domingo around the coast to Punta Cana stopping at three unique reef habitats.
第1天:
我们开始赶上凌晨4:30到机场的驾驶室,并在上午9:30之后在圣多明各的地面上。我们首先会见了Jhon H.Morató,他为我们参观了他当地的礁石商店(在这里阅读更多)并带我们参观了圣多明各的国家水族馆。
But we couldn’t just stop there, oh no we had to get in the water and find some corals! We did our first dive at theLa Caleta marine park我们对珊瑚的丰富感到惊喜。我们将整个潜水跨越一个小区域的1/4大面积与足球场聚会的大小相同,尽可能多地照相。这使我们对第二天的潜水更加兴奋。
第2天:
我们回到拉卡莱塔(La Caleta)进行了整整一天的潜水,水下状况非常完美,没有当前和30m+的可见性。珊瑚礁由大型的Orbicella菌落主导,我们将其冠冕为La Caleta Reef Builder Coral。
La Caleta的珊瑚多样性给我们留下了深刻的印象。到处都是您的健康珊瑚,其中很多。我们来自La Caleta的一些最喜欢的是肉质的Mussa Corals,所有不同的霉菌植物和尖刻的山山山陀螺症脑珊瑚。我们还发现了一个罕见的小殖民地Dendrogyra cylindricus,一个发光的Helioceris菌落以及Miandrina和Agaricia的一些有趣的支柱。
第三天:
This was a travel day we headed south from Santo Domingo towards the eastern coast of Bavaro, a popular Dominican Republic tourist destination covered with all inclusive hotels. The bus ride took nearly 5 hours to get us from the capitol to Bavaro.
第4天:
We did our 4th dive of the trip on the north east coast of the island withScubaCaribe。这y took us to visit the Rondana dive site which is located more on the atlantic side of the island. The coral diversity was nowhere near that of La Caleta, although there was quite a bit more than we expected. Over the past decade tourism has exploded along the Dominican coastline leading to a decline in the marine environment due to sedimentation runoff from the construction on land.
我们发现了相同的Orbicella菌落,在进一步检查岩石礁后,我们仍然能够挑选一些独特的珊瑚。我们发现了一个有趣的殖民地,是玛德拉西斯·德卡蒂斯(Madracis decactis),斯科里亚·库里西斯(Scolymia Cubensis)和佛罗里达莱科迪亚(Ricordia)和圣托马斯蘑菇(St. Thomas Mushrooms)的殖民地。Scubacaribe还提供了去Catalina和Bayahibe的潜水之旅,这对于寻找更高多样性鱼类和珊瑚的潜水员来说将是一个不错的选择。您可以在这里观看我们的潜水视频。
第5天:
我们最期待的潜水,也是这次旅行的最后一站是去蓬塔卡纳珊瑚修复花园。这个开创性的项目始于10年前,有一个令人印象深刻的花园Acroporacervicornis。
这Puntacana Foundation正在悬挂绳园,形状的金属框架和中水绳梯子上种植Acropora。还有一个珊瑚桌,上面有埃尔克霍恩(Elkhorn)碎片在大水泥盘上生长。他们告诉我们,最艰难的部分是跟上所有珊瑚,因为他们不断修剪和去除碎片,因此框架不会崩溃。
Stay tuned to ReefBuilders next week, were we will write a full report about thePuntacana Coral Restoration项目。
我们要感谢多米尼加礁,Scubacaribe和Puntacana基金会向我们展示多米尼加共和国!等不及要再次参观了。