After revisiting the reefs off of St. John’s Hawksnest Beach, my new opinion is that it is, if not the best, Hawksnest is one of the best “off the beach snorkels” on St. John. As I find more and more of what used to be vibrant and alive coral reefs succumbing to disease and high water temperatures, it seem that the elkhorn coral colony of Hawksnest Bay is still doing well. Although there are signs of coral bleaching and damage from high surf, there is what appears to be a forest of bright yellow elkhorns on the shallow reef.

Snorkelers should exercise caution approaching the shallow areas and avoid touching or, worse yet, standing on the reef, something potentially dangerous to both coral and snorkeler.

In addition to the elkhorns there’s also a great deal of life around the reef, such as lobsters, sea urchin, colorful sponges, several species of fish, tube worms, rays and turtles to name a few.

Underwater Hawksnest photos by Ray Armon

Angelfish	Elkhorn Coral	Sea Fan
Parrotfish	Coral	Sponge
Southern Sting Ray	Squid	Elkhorn Forest

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Life on St. John USVI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.