Cozumel, Mexico.

This week, Anne Sandler of Slow Shutter Speed challenges us to focus on water. Now that’s certainly a diverse topic with lots of potential for variety. She writes, “Water enhances our photos, adding impact. Photographing it is also fun and sometimes a challenge.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

In my library, I’ve got many photos with water as a background, or a body of water as a subject of a travel post. For this challenge, I decided to focus on water as a life source. Every creature on the planet needs water to live in some way, but there are creatures that depend upon the water surrounding them and water provides for their daily existence.

When I think of lakes, rivers, and oceans, and the creatures that live there, I think mostly about fish or the few mammals like dolphins and whales that call the undersea world their home. Living underwater, though, are a wide variety of plant and animal life forms. There are entire ecosystems in our oceans and seas, the largest of which are coral barrier reefs. The Great Barrier Reef in coastal Australia is the world’s largest, but off the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras you will find the Mesoamerican Reef, the second-largest reef system in the world, and the largest in the Americas. For my challenge-response, I feature the tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea and its inhabitants.

Views of the coral reef that is almost 700 miles (1126 km) long can be viewed by glass-bottom boats, but the best views are from a submarine similar to the Atlantis in the opening photo. In February 2020, we visited the reef via a glass-bottom boat at Isla Roatan Honduras, and again off the shore of Cozumel, Mexico where we boarded the submarine.

Obviously, humans can survive but moments underwater without some form of mechanical breathing apparatus, but with the aid of a submarine, we can get a glimpse of life in the reef ecosystem. With the pandemic, the Atlantis Submarines Expedition was closed for a time, but I see that people can now purchase tickets online to view the reef and its inhabitants. There is a reference to covid protocols on the site, but I would have to decide whether or not I want to be in such close proximity to strangers right now. But I digress from the photo challenge.

The variety of fish that depend upon the reef is wide and the relationships between fish and coral help to keep them both healthy providing places for fish to hide from predators while there are fish that feed on the algae that could harm the reef.

As we descended into the depths of the Caribbean, we were accompanied by many of these colorful striped damselfish. The sub went to a depth of about 50 feet (15 m) to view the ecosystem and then dived further to our maximum depth of 100 feet (30 m).

A minesweeper from the Mexican Navy (formerly bought from the United States Navy) was scuttled near the reef to provide a safe place for divers to explore while keeping them away from the fragile reef system. The ship lies at about 82 feet (25 m) below the surface of the Cozumel Underwater Marine Park that is responsible for protecting the reef and its valuable ecosystem.

Thanks to Anne for this week’s challenge topic. It reminded me of that day that we first visited the world under the surface of the water in a real submarine. You can view these images in 2K HD and some additional images of the reef on my Flickr site here.

John Steiner