The Reefs of Bermuda

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The Reefs of Bermuda Year after year recreational divers all over the world are drawn to Bermuda with it’s many coral reefs. Even the early Bermudians acknowledged the importance of the coral reefs for their local economy. Though today the Bermudian government won’t create the illusion of safe passages causing ships to run aground on the shallow reef, it does recognize its importance. Between 1975 and 1985 the catch levels of grouper and snapper, two very important reef species, dropped to a drastically low point while fish traps and boats (both for recreational and fishing purpose) caused severe damage to the reef structure. In 1990 Bermuda put a stop to the pot fishing industry (under pressure of hotel owners and divers clubs amongst others) to benefit reef biodiversity. Fishers were compensated for the cost of their gear and lost revenue. It was a choice between the $ 2 million fishing industry and the $ 9+ million recreational industry and very lucrative reef-based tourism. Today Bermuda offers a wide variety in shallow, tropical, reef and wreck diving. The wrecks are for the most part in shallow waters and therefore easily reachable. More excitingly, they are all REAL sites and often of historical importance. The only two artificial reef sites are The Hermes (75 ft) and The Xing Da (110 ft).

The quantity of the wrecks (over 400 known wrecks) suggests something about the difficulty to navigate the massive expanse of the Bermudan reef system. Of course the many false safe passage markings weren’t really helpful either. Just don’t expect the sites to be fully intact with lost undiscovered treasures guarded by the remnants of captain Unknown. A few very impressive wrecks are the L‘Herminie, Mary Celeste, Montana (Nola), The Kate, Lartington, North Carolina, Darlington, Madiana, Taunton, Blanche King and Caraquet. Underwater you can find the Cathedral near Gurnet Rock. It’s a huge underwater dome with several ‘windows’. The shafts of light coming in through these windows only add to the atmosphere of being in some sort of underwater cathedral. The Cathedral is a very popular dive where a lot of marine life can be seen. Other popular dive sites are the Flatt Bridges and Devil’s hole. Because of the popularity of diving and snorkelling, many shops can be found on the island providing top notch diving gear. There is still a lot to uncover. Over 200 square miles of near virgin reef surround Bermuda. The warm, nutrient waters of the Gulf Stream pass through Bermuda and have helped establish a healthy ecosystem in the reef. Rim reefs create a circle along the North Lagoon and are formed on the raised rim of the Bermuda platform. Here many hard corals can be found, such as Brain and Star corals as well as sea rods and sea fans as the large Gorgonia. Branching corals as Madracis and Oculina, the fire coral Millepora alcicornis and soft corals as the sea rod Pseudoplexaura are known to flourish in the calmer environment of the waters inside the North Lagoon. On the southern and south eastern side of the island, small and generally rounded reefs extend to the sea surface and have waves continuously breaking over them. This creates the illusion of the water boiling. The ‘boilers’ are part of the rim reef system. Though Bermuda has been classified as an atoll (according to Charles Darwin one of the three major types of coral reefs) it would be more accurate to call it a pseudo atoll. Though Bermuda shares a lot of similarities with an atoll, there is a vast difference in the process that formed Bermuda and the process that forms an atoll. Over time sands in Bermuda have collected, been compressed and turned into solid rock ground by a process known as lithification (from the Greek word lithos meaning 'rock' and the Latin-derived suffix –ific). If you compare the land formations of Bermuda and the formations of genuine Pacific atolls, you can see that they are much taller. An atoll is the third type of reef next to the fringing reef (an area along the shore where coral colonies have been able to grow) and the barrier reef (a coral zone separated from land by a lagoon). An atoll is a ring-like reef formation with a lagoon inside the ring.