Colors of Coral, Bali

Coral reefs are amazing things. They grow in warm, clear waters around the globe. They have the ability to live in nutrient poor tropics because of a mutualistic relationship with algae called zooxanthellae that lives inside the stony coral skeleton. The zooxanthellae uses the ample sunlight in the shallow water to photosynthesize creating food for it and its host coral. The algae also provides color to the otherwise white coral. All young coral need to find something sturdy to attach too in order to start growing into a reef. They could grow on top of another reef, rocks, or in this case a shipwreck!
 We dove the US Transport ship Liberty here in Bali, Indonesia and I was shocked to witness the amount of color that is underwater. So many different types of coral, both hard and soft, have attached to the ship wreck and have grown quickly. The wreck has been completely submerged for about 50 years which is a relatively short time for coral to form such dense coverage. Indonesia's location in between the Pacific and Indian Oceans and right near the equator provides a high probability of coral finding and colonizing it.
  As your diving you have to be very careful with the coral. It can be sharp, or delicate, or even poisonous. One wayward kick with your fins and you could break off a piece of coral that took decades to grow. An amazing amount of soft coral blended in with the hard coral covering the wreck. Soft corals lack the stony skeleton and include things like sea whips, sea fans, gorgonians, etc. Many of these soft corals housed tiny, hard to see animals hiding amongst their polyps. That is when it is very nice to be scuba diving and being able to go slow and look at everything. You never know what you might find.

A hawksbill sea turtle feeding on the sponges