St. Eustatius - Double Wreck

Setting

A mixed seagrass, patch-reef, and sponge-garden habitat; no wreck structure appears in this 12-frame sample despite the site name, which may reflect the sample missing the wreck itself or the wreck lying in a separate part of the dive. Visibility is workable but hazy/particulate throughout, consistent with a site with fine sediment and seagrass nearby (e.g., Image 7).

7

General benthic features

Elsewhere, low coral/rock outcrops rising from the seagrass are thickly colonized by sponges: a prominent cluster of bright yellow tube sponges, red and orange encrusting sponges, pale blue-gray vase-type sponges, and a green branching gorgonian/sea rod, with a small mustard-hill-type coral head (olive-green encrusting mounds) and a khaki brain/star coral head nearby (e.g., Image 3, Image 26).

326

A separate pair of large barrel sponges (one with a striped fish sheltering in its mouth, plus sergeant majors and a spotted trunkfish/boxfish visible) frames a cleaning-station-like scene with schooling reef fish; black wire coral and a small round dark sponge sit at their base (e.g., Image 36, Image 39).

3639

One frame shows a solitary massive star-coral colony (tan, evenly pored, healthy-looking) on the seabed among rubble and low-growing sponges (e.g., Image 31).

31

Coral cover

Coral cover: 5.6% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 46 of Anderson's unedited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table. Wreck and artificial-structure site: this cover value counts coral growing on man-made structure (steel, concrete, wreck debris) and the bottom around it, so it isn't comparable with natural-reef cover or with regional averages.

Stressors

No bleaching, disease, or physical damage is visible on any of the coral colonies photographed.

Fish and other fauna

A green sea turtle is visible cruising over a seagrass meadow in hazy blue-green water in the opening frame (e.g., Image 27).

27

Macro frames show a yellowline arrow crab (Stenorhynchus seticornis) with long banded legs sheltering under an orange encrusting sponge, an aggregation of long-spined black brittle stars densely packed together in a crevice, and a Pederson/spotted cleaner shrimp (cf. Periclimenes) perched on the pale lavender-tipped tentacles of a corkscrew or giant anemone (e.g., Image 1, Image 17, Image 23).

11723

A great barracuda swims low over the seagrass in a separate frame, with a diver's fin visible at the frame edge (e.g., Image 8).

8

Comparisons with other data

No independent survey was made at this exact site; the nearest ones are listed in the table below.