Coral Spawning

To round out another good week of classes, the class had the opportunity to go on a night dive to check out coral spawning. Before we headed out on our night dive, I got to enjoy another beautiful sunset. We started our dive at 9:30pm and got back around 10:30pm going to a depth around 35-40 feet. During the whole dive we saw both female and male coral spawn. The female spawning is easier to see because the eggs are more visible than the sperm. When the males spawn, it looks like a dust and is hard to distinguish if you don't really know what it looks like because you can confuse it with some of the other things floating in the water. I for sure saw a female coral spawn and I believe I saw a male spawning event but it was a small one and was a little hard to distinguish. If you want to see what I saw last night check out this link Coral Spawning. The spawning I saw was not as big as what was shown in the video and could have easily been missed. Spawning events happen at specific times and are synchronized because the male sperm cannot survive as long as the eggs. So there are mass spawning events, which occur after a full moon and when water temperatures are warm enough to stimulate maturation of the gametes.

Besides seeing some coral spawning, I saw a bunch of trumpetfish hanging around sponge corals. I was so close to some of them that it seemed like I could have touched them. Crabs were spotted walking on the corals in and out of crevices. Spotted a balloonfish and at one point it started to swim straight at me but then decided to veer off. Every time I go diving I see something new and exciting! It is also so peacefully diving and is hard to put into words the feeling that I have. When I find the right words I will share the feeling.

Trumpetfish