Aqua Life at Doorstep

Mysteries of the Coral Reef

The Bay of Pigs is surprisingly clear and vividly blue — nothing like its name might suggest. Cuba’s famous bay looks like an artist’s palette — one that stretches toward the horizon. There’s a streak of robin’s-egg blue by the rocky shore. Further out, the water turns turquoise, then navy blue where the seafloor drops down to meet the deeper ocean.
Beneath the surface, bright bursts of other colors come into view. Even in 10 meters (about 33 feet) of water, you can see hills on the sandy bottom. Look closer and you can see that each hill is a clump of fanciful structures in greens, browns, oranges and purples. They resemble piles of boulders topped by tubes, antlers, bushes and fans. They’re coral reefs, or stony ridges made from the external skeletons of millions of tiny marine creatures living together. Fittingly, some scientists call them “animal forests.”