Pink Beach
CuriousOyster
Steve & Trish Brown
Fri 9 Sep 2011 05:33
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One of the bays within the Komodo and Rinca islands
is Pink beach, the sand
in this lovely bay is a beautiful pink
colour due to the red coral
nearby
We went snorkelling to a
huge sea mount about 300 yards from the beach,
it was very hard work swimming against the current
and fifty per cent of the
time no matter how hard we swam we couldn't make any headway
It really was worth the effort to get there,
there were so many fish and some
of the biggest butterflyfish we've
seen
One-Spot Butterflyfish
 Living close by is a huge Star Pufferfish - he is
about three feet long .......
 .... and quite a handsome chap
 The last few weeks have given us a graphic
understanding of mans impact on
the marine environment
In the Bone Rate archipelago over thirty years of
devastation with explosives
and poisons have reduced the coral to rubble,
killed off most of the fish, turtles
and all other forms of marine life
In the Wakatobi group of islands, declared a
National Park about ten
years ago, there is clear evidence of a dramatic
recovery of both coral, fishes
and the whole range of marine life
However, the growing population is allowed to fish
for their own needs and
their indescriminate methods are taking all of the
larger fish and shellfish
leaving only very small fish destined for a very
short life span
However in the Komodo islands, that have long been
established as a national
park, the locals are allowed only to use hand lines
and take what they need for
themselves and there
has been no transmigration into the islands from other
parts of Indonesia,
the net effect has been the creation of a marine environment
as it should be,
beautiful and varied coral, fish both large and small and clear
clean waters
Taken a step further when fishing is banned
altogether, as it is in a few small
areas within the Komodo National Park, the fish
life is quite literally
astonishing and around this large sea mount we saw
the biggest fish in
virtually all
species including this Blue Fin Travally at least twenty five per
cent
bigger than we have seen on our travels so
far
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