~~~ Part 9 ~~~

Having worked up quite an appetite on their two morning dives, Elizabeth asked for lunch recommendations on the way back and if any of the guys would like to join them for lunch. Captain Leroy accepted the invitation, and after securing the boat, the three of them walked over to a casual local restaurant on the beach by the dock. They passed some construction on the way.

"Irma was two years ago," Leroy said, referring to the hurricane that had devastated Anguilla. "Aya Lord, she was a Cat 5, and she mash up things bad. The hospital, police station, fire station, airport control tower, ferry terminal - all clean gone or suffered major damage. We needed medical relief, food, water, generators, building material. Them ship from off-island; it's not like in the States where you could truck in supplies."

Henry and Elizabeth listened intently as they rehydrated by drinking a grapefruit-flavored soda. "Boris Johnson came the week after the storm. We had some support from the government, some from private organizations. Everybody on the island, all we worked together and helped one another. But you can't rebuild in a day. We had no electric current for three months! Most people here use cisterns for water, and cistern pumps need power. Three months is a long time drawing buckets of water. It's a long time without a refrigerator. Good thing we have a generator, but we used it for water, some lights; not everyone have generators, or can afford to run them the minimum four hours a day needed for refrigeration."

"That would be a lot of gas or diesel, and a lot of noise and smoke," Henry commented. Leroy nodded.

"They built the hotels back; most of them open now. Many homes were completely destroyed; everybody had at least some damage. You still see tarps all over; some people ain't even start repairing yet. The secondary school was destroyed, them primary schools too. Them students still sharing buildings: the younger students go to school in the morning, and the older ones in the afternoon. The new school won't be ready for donkey years - a long time. Progress is slow-slow, but it's coming."

Their food arrived - generous portions of stew curry goat, tender conch, and grilled snapper, with sides of the ubiquitous peas and rice and plantains - and there was a lull in conversation as they all dug in.

Leroy continued, "The coral reefs, that's another story. Coral grows very slowly, only a couple of centimeters or only millimeters a year. You saw how the shallow coral took a beating in the storm surge, but the deeper coral's intact. Hurricanes are only one of the threats to coral. As the ocean gets warmer, not only do hurricanes get stronger; we lose coral to coral bleaching too. We're also monitoring for Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, which is rapidly destroying coral in Florida and has been spotted in St. Martin. And of course, people damage the reef, by touching coral, anchoring boats on it, and by wearing sunscreen with harmful chemicals."

"We read to only use zinc oxide," Henry interjected.

"Then there're invasive lionfish. Lionfish are kept as aquarium fish in the States, and then somehow they either escaped or were released. They ain't native to the Atlantic, so they have no predators here. Their population exploded, and them eat other fishes that are needed to sustain the reef."

Elizabeth asked Leroy about endangered animals. "Green sea turtles and hawksbill turtles are endangered, hawksbills critically so. Both live and nest here. Full grown turtles can get injured or killed by boats and nets, but most turtles don't even make it to adulthood. Turtle eggs and hatchlings get eaten by predators, or turtle nests are disturbed by people or other animals. Light pollution disorients turtle hatchlings so they can't find their way to the ocean when they crawl out of their nests. And as people build along more and more of the coastline, there are fewer places left for them to nest at all. Volunteers monitor the beaches for signs of nesting activity and we try to protect the nests."

"Irma took down many many trees. And we lost every single leaf and every single flower, which means no nectar, no bees, no birds. We had damage to the mangroves, which are a critical ecosystem for seabirds and other animals."

"You know about the local iguana?" Leroy asked. Henry and Elizabeth shook their heads, not sure what he was referring to. "We lost most of our iguanas because of a previous hurricane, Luis, back in 1995. But not the way you would think; it was indirectly. The Lesser Antillean Iguana is a critically endangered iguana species; just a few islands have them. If you see an iguana here, it ain't the Lesser Antillean Iguana. Before Luis, Anguilla had them, not Green Iguanas. But during Luis some Green Iguanas floated over on debris, and now? They're all Green. The Green Iguanas outcompete them, and they breed together, and their babies are no longer Lesser Antillean Iguanas. Within three years, we had maybe 300 native iguanas left; in 2016, fewer than two dozen. To protect the native iguanas, the Anguilla National Trust relocated those remaining iguanas to Prickly Pear East," Leroy pointed in the direction of the Prickly Pear Cays, "where there are no Green Iguanas, so they can breed without interference. Big-up to them for that. But that's a minuscule population to try to replenish from."

Elizabeth and Henry shared some of their observations and had some questions for Leroy, and at some point Leroy switched to asking them questions, mostly about conservation efforts in the US, which they answered as best they could, while continuing to stuff themselves with the food that was too good to leave behind. They thanked Leroy for his informative company, and bid him goodbye until the next morning when they'd be back on the dive boat to complete Henry's certification.