It has been hard watching the weather channel during the last six months.  So many places that I have been diving have been hit by hurricanes, tropical storms or cyclones.  These powerful storms have been just devastating topside and to the reefs surrounding them.   In the above image a coral head with a knobby sea rod had been upended by a hurricane.  I suspect both the coral head and the sea rod will eventually die.  (You try living on your side when you are designed to sit upright!)   And yet, at the time I shot this image several months after the hurricane went through, an arrow crab and a basket star had turned the sea rod and coral head into their home. (You have to look very close to see the basket star which is behind the arrow crab and it helps to look at the image at 100%).  

I was looking through images I’ve shot over the last year or so and it occurred to me.  I have been diving at certain islands before and after a storm has gone through.  Yep, topside and underwater often have gotten pretty beat up.   Sometimes when I have been places after a storm the blue tarps are still up on the buildings to shut out the rain.   But, I have seen that with the passage of time there is usually recovery.  Now there is no question the dive sites are different. And, I am sure the life experience topside is never the same.  For instance, below is an image I took of the Papa doc wreck in Grand Bahama about six months before a hurricane when through.  

  At the stern of what was once a tug boat the exhaust port for the engine was still intact and the fish, in this case long spine squirrel fish, were able to swim from one side of the hull to the other through the exhaust port.  The hull although cracked was still intact.  There also were quite a few sea fans and sea rods attached to the hull.  The sand the wreck sat on was pretty minimal.   Now consider what the wreck looks like a few months after the hurricane went through.  

The stern of the Papa doc is gone.  I could find no long spine squirrel fish any where on the wreck. Most of the sea rods and sea fans were blasted off the wreck.    And, there is an additional three feet of sand that the wreck is sitting on.  Where did the sand come from?  What was a sandy beach about half mile away, now has a whole lot less sand.  Oh, and the sand displaced the garden eels that otherwise were near the wreck before the hurricane.    It was hard to believe it was the same wreck.  And yet, there was some fish life around the wreck and you could see where the sea fans and sea rods were trying to make a come back.  

In February 2016 a class five cyclone (same thing as a hurricane only in the Pacific) went through Fiji.  One of the dive shop owners told me that Taveuni  after the storm did not have a single leaf left on any top water plant.  Now that was hard to believe because only sixteen months later Taveuni was a lush tropical island.   

The palm trees have leaves, the grass is green and the recovery looks good.  

Lots of leaves and greenery now after 16 months.  And underwater, well in Fiji my only word for it: spectacular. 

So hopefully, with time all of the islands in the Caribbean will make a recovery.