The group of divers after a successful night dive to view coal spawning.
According to experts, very few divers ever get the chance to see mass coral spawning, not least because the spawning process which lasts barely 15 minutes, occurs once a year and at night.
In fact marine biologists only discovered the phenomenon in the 1980s.
Despite this, Grand Cayman dive operation Ocean Frontiers, under the guidance of renowned photographer Alex Mustard, have successfully observed and documented the event over the past four years.
Knowing that coral spawning in these waters happens about one week after the full moon at the beginning of September, Ocean Frontiers schedule special night dives to catch the spectacle.
According to Steve Broadbelt, co-founder of Ocean Frontiers, 2006 was a particularly good year for the coral. The spawning demonstrated that the reefs are in good health after Hurricane Ivan and a new species, Massive Starlet Coral, was documented for the first time.
He says the spectacle is astonishing.
"A coral spends most of the year doing a good impersonation of a rock but on this one night the whole reef explodes into effervescent life," said Mr Broadbelt.
The technical explanation of the event is that on the night of spawning, soon after sundown, the flower-like polyps which make up the living coral colony begin to expand, as sperm packets are moved up from a space within the underlying coral skeleton.
Soon, bright orange or red eggs are brought up and "glued" to the individual sperm bundles, until the sperm is completely surrounded. In simple terms the water becomes filled with what looks like coloured snow floating upwards.
Although many regard coral as an inanimate object, rather like a rock, it is actually a very complex living organism. Like any other living creature it must reproduce to survive and coral spawning is a vital part of this process.
Research in the Cayman Islands has documented hard corals including Staghorn Coral, Elkhorn Coral, Great star Coral, Lobed Star Coral, Boulder Star Coral and Symmetrical Brain Coral spawning, along with soft corals such as Porous Sea Rods and Black Sea Rods.
For more information visit the Ocean Frontiers Ltd website www.oceanfrontiers.com
