Grand Cayman Coral Spawning..

I took 8 divers on a dive last night to see if we could see the once a year coral spawn, after a little consult with Alex (Dr Mustard) I was all set. Not really knowing the exact time it would happen we waited as late as we could and then got ready to go. A quick brief on what to look for, the dive site and diving at night and off we went. Unfortunately for some of the divers after 50 minutes they were out just as things started to happen. A friend and wetpixel member was the first to see some action, he called me and another over to see these small balls of orange spawn. We looked and looked to see if we could see where they we coming from, but nothing, then I saw where, a small piece of Star Coral, but just a little and then it stopped. Now I know what to look for, as I turned I saw a massive piece of Star Coral and we stayed and watched, then all of a sudden the whole thing just went bang! it was like a slow moving firework, thousands and thousands of small orange balls popped out of the coral and floated in the water and got carried away. Quite an impressive sight to see.

Good images of this amazing event.

Great stuff. I uploaded some pictures earlier - put a post on Digital Diver and then had to go out - been meaning to get these up all day! So belatedly here are some of my shots from last night's show:

Alex

And here are a few from the next night (Thursday).

And then after spawning the corals have a smoke:

The smoke is from the gonochoristic spawning of the Great Star Coral (the smoke is either eggs or sperm). While the bundles (pinky-orange balls) from the other corals are mixtures of eggs and sperm (although self incompatible). The latter is more common as most of the spawning corals are hermaphrodites.

Here is another smoker - a Massive Starlet Coral taken earlier in the week:

Alex

p.s. How did you get on last night, Patrick.

Hey thats great guys, wish I was there with the Phenom....we missed this years here as it happend a night earlier and surprised us. Was there lots of wiggly wormy things, and did they get in ya ears....

Alex sent you an email, Wagsy, not to many little buggers but there were a few, kept my fingers in my ears, that's why I coulnd't shoot