We saw two interesting examples. On a snorkeling expedition out at the south end of the local region, we moored at a tiny desert island, with three palms on it and white sand fingers of beach leading into a shallow area littered with coral. It seemed to me there were huge swaths of dead coral bones all over the place, with a good number of healthy corals in between. I asked about it and the explanation was the natural destruction caused by hurricanes and tropical storms. They get really hard hurricanes once every few years, and even the barrier reef does not prevent huge violent waves and winds reaching the shallower inside waters.

A couplke of days later I was diving along another section, about ten miles further north along the barrier reef, and the entire region looked healthy with only a few scattered areas of broken bleached remains.

In both areas the marine life was astonishing to swim among--sea turtles, manta rays, jacks, groupers, school-masters, nurse-sharks, occasional dolphins.

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