I do. As a teen, I snorkeled through Keys’ waters so clear and
vibrant with exotic life and color they were almost scary.
After talking with Causey, I will do some diving in the Keys, includ-
ing a couple of dives down to Aquarius, the world’s last underwater
research habitat, 7 miles off Key Largo. The habitat is a 48-foot cylin-
drical structure resting on four steel legs planted on the bottom in 60
feet of water. Its yellow body is rusting in spots and encrusted with
weedy growths being grazed by roving schools of fish. A couple of large
tarpon in the 100- to 150-pound class circle it curiously, shadowing me
as I swim under the metal skirt of the habitat, popping up in the wet
room where a school of yellowtail snapper huddle discreetly at the edge
of the entry pool. Beyond the wet room there is a lab, shower and toi-
let, kitchen and berthing area with two sets of triple bunks. Scientists,
living here for up to 8 days at a time, have a unique opportunity to
study the world’s third-largest reef system.
Unfortunately the reef they are studying is also dying. Where once
branching corals grew, I find only skeletal sticks in faded rubble fields.
Many of the abundant rock corals are being eaten away by diseases that
have spread in an epidemic wave throughout the Keys. The names of the
diseases tell the story: black band, white band, white plague, and
aspergillus, a fungus normally found in agricultural soils that can shred
fan corals like moths shred Irish lace. The corals are also being smoth-
ered under sediment and algal growth linked to polluted run-off and are
periodically bleaching white as a result of warming ocean temperatures.
AUSTRALIA’S CORALCRISIS
I did not see some of the worst bleaching effects in the Keys, but 8
months later I get an opportunity to investigate coral bleaching and its
links to climate change as part of a magazine assignment in Australia
and Fiji. It will turn out to be a challenging job full of too much travel,
miscommunications, political conflict, a dive in which my air cuts off,
and another in which I cut my hand on coral, resulting in the need for
hand surgery. Still, given my paradise-rich itinerary, I receive little sym-
pathy from my friends.
The first leg of the journey takes me from Washington, D.C., to Los
Australia, Florida, and Fiji 129