236
the marine laboratory at Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay, where a bubbly green alga
called Dictyospheria was thriving on the coastal pollution from the ever-growing
human population around the bay.
Then I had the good fortune to pursue my dissertation research while living for
18 months in Belau, in the Western Caroline Islands, western Pacific. On the water
nearly every day and snorkeling or diving weekly, the reefs were beyond spectacular! Whether snorkeling in a small bay where hundreds of sea snakes were congregated, or SCUBA diving the Malakal drop off where the water was so clear and the
reef so sheer that one could get twinges comparable to fear of height when swimming from the shallow reef over the edge to gaze at the abyss below. Only in the
immediate vicinity of the harbor and around the town of Koror were the effects of
Fig. 14.4 Top: Crown-ofThorns starfish in the
Maldives. Bottom:
Skeleton of a coral preyed
upon by a Crown-ofThorns starfish in the
Maldives. (Images by
P. Hallock)
P. Hallock
the marine laboratory at Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay, where a bubbly green alga
called Dictyospheria was thriving on the coastal pollution from the ever-growing
human population around the bay.
Then I had the good fortune to pursue my dissertation research while living for
18 months in Belau, in the Western Caroline Islands, western Pacific. On the water
nearly every day and snorkeling or diving weekly, the reefs were beyond spectacular! Whether snorkeling in a small bay where hundreds of sea snakes were congregated, or SCUBA diving the Malakal drop off where the water was so clear and the
reef so sheer that one could get twinges comparable to fear of height when swimming from the shallow reef over the edge to gaze at the abyss below. Only in the
immediate vicinity of the harbor and around the town of Koror were the effects of
Fig. 14.4 Top: Crown-ofThorns starfish in the
Maldives. Bottom:
Skeleton of a coral preyed
upon by a Crown-ofThorns starfish in the
Maldives. (Images by
P. Hallock)
P. Hallock