Starting from the intersection of Centerline Road (Routes 10)
and Salt Pond Road (Route 107), near the Coral Bay Moravian Church,
proceed east 1.8 miles on the East End Road (Route 10) to the
mangrove-lined Princess Bay. The bay is close to the road. Enter
the water at any convenient spot and once in the water head east
(left), where the mangrove roots grow in water deep enough to
comfortably accommodate snorkeling.
Mangrove Fringe Forests
The prospect of snorkeling in the mangroves is not often greeted
with enthusiasm. Mangroves are usually thought of as hot, buggy,
smelly swamps. This assessment is essentially correct for mangrove
basin forests found in the Virgin Islands and elsewhere. These
occur where mountain guts flow into large flatlands bordered
by shallow well-protected bays. Mangrove basin forests can
be hot and muggy, with little breeze and lots of bugs. Moreover,
the abundance of decaying organic matter in the swamp sends
off a decidedly disagreeable odor, so that, all in all, snorkeling
the basin forest mangroves is not particularly inviting.
Another type of mangrove habitat, however, called a fringe forest,
can also be found in the Virgin Islands. In a fringe forest,
mangroves grow along a narrow, partially submerged shelf situated
between a well-protected bay and sharply rising hillsides. Because
these mangroves are confined to a narrow shelf of land, there
are no extensive wetlands and less organic debris, hence the
fringe forest is far less humid, supports less insect life, and
is not foul smelling like the basin forest. Here, snorkelers
can comfortably observe the mangrove habitat, a vast underwater
nursery, serving almost all the species of fish that will eventually
live around and within the coral reefs.
Mangrove Sea Life
You can snorkel right up to the mangroves. Don’t wear fins
for this snorkel. Taking care not to kick up sediment, look inside
the tangle of roots. You will be astounded by this vast nursery
for tiny fish, such as miniature, blue tang, French grunts, yellowtail
snapper, butterfly fish, jacks, damselfish, sergeant majors,
parrotfish, old wife, fry and barracuda. The dense, shallow environment
of the mangrove roots offers an exceptionally wide variety of
baby fish safety from the appetites of larger fish as well as
a thick soup of nutrients provided by the decay of mangrove leaves
and twigs.
The more you look, the more you'll see - small colorful corals
and sponges encrusted to the mangrove roots, oysters, baby lobsters,
shrimp, crabs, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and conchs. You may
find it amusing to observe the tiny barracudas, some just an
inch or two long, exhibiting the same fierce behavior as their
larger counterparts, lying almost motionless in the water waiting
for the opportunity to dart out and devour fish that are even
tinier than themselves.
Spaghetti Worms
The long white strands that look like thread or thin spaghetti
belong to a class of tubeworms aptly named spaghetti worms.
Gently touch the strand and watch it withdraw slowly back into
its tube.
Upsidedown Jellyfish
Another strange creature that inhabits the underwater mangrove
environment is the upsidedown jellyfish. Jellyfish are in the
same family as corals and exhibit many of the same traits,
the main difference being that jellyfish live individually
while corals live in communities.
The upsidedown jellyfish supplements its diet of whatever it
can trap within its tentacles with food produced through photosynthesis
by single-celled algae that have a symbiotic relationship with
the jellyfish. As compensation for sharing their food, the algae
are allowed to live, secure from danger, inside the poisonous
tentacles of the jellyfish. The upsidedown jellyfish spends most
of its life lying upside-down on the bottom of mangrove lagoons,
allowing the algae to get sunlight.
The scientific name of the upsidedown jellyfish is Cassiopeia
frondosa. Virginia Barlow in her excellent book, The Nature of
the Islands, gives this explanation of the origin of the name: “Cassiopeia
was a mythical queen who was turned into a constellation by a
group of gods who favored her. She was then positioned in the
sky by another group of gods who were her bitter rivals. These
gods placed her so far north that she appeared upside-down for
much of the year, a punishment for her vanity.”
Algae
Also commonly seen on fringe forest mangrove snorkels are several
varieties of algae with descriptive names such as Neptune's
shaving brush, white scroll algae, mermaid's fan, and the sea
pearl, an iridescent algae, which is one of the largest one-celled
organism in the world. They can be as big as a ping pong ball.
