Now, coral bleaching isn't new to Thailand or its neighbours, however, this year the gravity of the bleaching and the sheer pace and volume in which the corals are changing colour is quite severe.
Bleaching has got many causes, but the main one here seems to be the rise in sea water temperature and this over a prolonged period of time. Since the end of March the temperature hasn't been below 31c with peaks of 34c at times.
The change in temperature acts as a stressor on the algaes which lives on the corals and which actually give the colour to the coral skeleton. This stress leads to a stimulated discharge of the colourful algaes and eventually to their death, turning the fragile corals in to a snow-white structure.
During our dives we noticed significant bleaching of the entire reef and some parts are even completely colourless, giving us the feeling that we were diving in a huge snowy white garden. The pictures below, taking by Oliver Zarnack, show some of the corals on Koh Rang.
It is a very special feeling of diving in such conditions and in one way, everyone should go down there and see what we are doing to our beautiful planet and on the other hand it gives us an opportunity of monitoring closely their hopefully quick recovery.
But overall it hurts to see our reefs like this and we should all be very concerned about what causes this massive bleaching and how we can prevent this in the near future!
As for now we can only hope on some rain to cool things down, so that the corals can start recovering as soon as possible.
Happy Bubbles!
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