Escape From Fear (12 page)

Since Ashley was swimming behind Jack, whenever she wanted to show him something, she would grab one of his feet and pull it. He didn't mind, because he didn't want to miss anything. Dangling from a cord around his neck was an underwater camera he'd rented. As each species came into view through the clear, turquoise water, he would take careful aim and shoot, being cautious not to waste his shots, because it would be too difficult to change film that far from shore.

They drifted through swarms of blue needle-nosed fish thinner than pencils and were surrounded by hordes of tiny fish as thick as gnats, so plentiful that they should have been bumping into one another and Jack, but they never did. “Awesome,” he thought.

Turning himself around, Jack peered into the coral reef that rose up in castle-like spires. It was then he saw it—the dark, mottled-brown shape gliding across the coral tips, bobbing up to the surface for a quick gulp of air before sailing down to the reef once again. A hawksbill!

In an instant Jack reared up, yanking his mask off in order to call his family. When he told them what he'd found, an expression of sheer delight lit up his mother's face. “You know, it might be the female we saved last night—wouldn't that be incredible! Where is she?”

“Follow me!” Jack commanded, securing his mask. As he placed his face down into the water, once again he had the feeling he had entered a giant aquarium, one with colors created from a palette not found on dry land. A fish painted in orange and black stripes shot past, while one as bright as a lemon darted only three feet beyond Jack's hand. But where was the turtle? For a moment he thought the hawksbill had vanished, until he finally caught sight of her paddling blissfully to the surface, as graceful in the water as a dolphin.

The other three Landons gave Jack a “thumbs up,” smiling as much as they could with snorkels wedged in their mouths. Jack felt his throat tighten with emotion. The reality of what had nearly happened hit him full-force: This beautiful, gentle creature had almost died at the hands of men who cared only for money. Although the poachers had been caught, Jack knew there were more of them out there, waiting. The coral reef was dying, too; its fragile perfection smothered by runoff soil as land was cleared for buildings. Other parts of the reef had been shattered by boat anchors. But at least there would be no more anchor damage in Jumbie Bay, now that those smugglers had been caught.

When he felt a tug on his swim fin, Jack raised his head above water and stared right into Ashley's face.

“What's up?” Ashley asked, treading water like a puppy. Leave it to his sister to read his face, even behind a mask.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Jack. What?”

“I guess…I guess I was thinking that the hawksbills are still not safe. What if poachers keep killing them? They'll become extinct, gone forever! And the reef—oh, I don't know.”

“It won't happen, not if people fight it. Forrest is going to law school to protect the Haitians. Why don't you go, too? Then you can protect the turtles and the coral reefs.” She was beginning to pant, because it was harder to float while treading water than when stretched out, facedown. Jack felt his own heart beat faster as he worked his arms and legs.

“You mean you want me to be a lawyer?”

“Maybe. Or maybe not. Just so you do
something
to save the Earth!” Ashley gave him a playful splash and pushed the end of the snorkel back into her mouth.

With a swish of her fins she was gone, joining Steven and Olivia as they hovered over the place where the turtle had been.

A wave buoyed Jack up and down, rocking him as gently as a baby in a cradle. He felt the soft breeze on his cheeks, working with the sun to dry his skin until it felt taut with salt. Ashley was right. His life stretched ahead of him as far as the ocean. Anything was possible. Forrest had come to this small island to find someone who mattered to him. Well, Jack had found something, as well. There was work to do. Work
he
could do.

The rhythm of the ocean carried him forward and back, an eternal tide of beginnings and endings.

B
eneath the surface of the clear, tropical waters of Virgin Islands National Park lie the beautiful coral reefs that captivated Ashley and Jack. A never-ending parade of activity and color, coral reefs are central to the lives of millions of species of animals and plants. While some creatures are full-time residents, some are visitors just passing through. Others are underwater commuters, traveling daily from nearby habitats (the “suburbs”) to the coral “cities.” Rush-hour traffic peaks at dawn and dusk. At dusk, reef fish, such as grunts and snappers, and invertebrate carnivores, such as lobsters, race away from the reef to dine in the nearby seagrass and algal plains communities. Traveling in the opposite direction, parrotfish return to the coral city and join the many other fish and invertebrate species seeking shelter in the reef at night. At dawn, the scene reverses.

Some creatures have a
much
longer commute. Every few years the female Hawksbill sea turtle travels from the coral reefs where she feeds on sponges and zoanthids (sea anemone-like animals), across hundreds of miles of ocean to the beach where she hatched from an egg. She crawls from the sea onto the beach where she began life and uses her flippers to dig a pit in the sand. There she lays her eggs, covers them with sand, and returns to the sea—to begin her long trip back to the reefs where she feeds.

As you can see, coral reefs do not exist in isolation. Their health is deeply connected to the quality of the water and the health of nearby and distant communities of other tropical marine habitats, such as the seagrass beds and algal plains.

Coral reefs have survived millions of years of Mother Nature's tests: hurricanes (also called cyclones), winter storms, tsunamis, diseases, warmer and colder water, higher and lower sea levels, predators. As if Mother Nature's tests were not enough, humankind's destructive activities add further stress to coral reefs. Boats run aground, anchors are improperly placed, and careless snorkelers and divers stand on the coral. Reefs are paved-over for airport runways or cut into blocks for building onshore. Soil runs off cleared land smothering near-shore reefs and making breathing difficult for resident fish. Sewage, oil spills, and other pollutants—such as fertilizers and pesticides—can degrade water quality to the point that coral reef organisms can no longer live. Heavy fishing pressure reduces the numbers and sizes of fish and removes most of the large predators, which eventually changes the way the reef functions.

Today, the world is losing coral reefs at an alarming rate. Record high seawater temperatures, coral disease outbreaks, and human activities seem to be the major culprits. Although we cannot stop coral diseases, coral-eating predators, powerful storms, or tsunamis, we can help coral reefs survive. First we need to minimize our destructive or careless activities. Second, if damage does occur, we need to use the best scientific information to design ways to help reefs recover. At Virgin Islands National Park, we have tried to do both. Scientists, community volunteers, and 5th-6th grade science class students from a local school worked together on a coral transplant project that combined community education and scientific research on coral reefs. The purpose of the project was to find a simple, easy, non-destructive way to transplant living coral to damaged reefs in an attempt to speed the reef's recovery.

The first problem was where to find the corals to transplant. Mother Nature provided the answer. Many species of coral reproduce by fragmentation. Pieces of coral are broken off large coral colonies by the force of large waves produced by powerful storms or hurricanes. The fragments of coral roll around on the bottom until they either lodge firmly in a crack in the reef or are scoured by sand and sediment and die. By collecting coral fragments from sandy areas where they had little chance of surviving, the research team had a ready source of corals to transplant and the fragments had an increased chance of survival. Plastic cable ties were used to attach the pieces of coral to the transplant reef. Every month, the team snorkeled out to the reef, photographed the colonies, and recorded the condition of both the transplanted corals and an equal number of the reef's naturally occurring colonies. When the two-year study ended, we found that the survival of the transplanted corals was nearly the same as corals found naturally on the reef. Success! Although this method is now being used to help coral reefs recover from small areas with physical damage, it is important to remember that
a damaged reef can never be restored to its original state.

We have a long way to go before we understand the workings of coral reefs and the tropical underwater world. If Jack does choose to study the beautiful and complex world of coral reefs, he will find a wealth of exciting questions to be answered and problems to be solved.

Ginger Garrison
Marine Ecologist
U.S. Geological Survey

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