I'd like to be, under the sea in an octopuses' garden in the sun. photos Elena

Snorkeling on the offshore reefs of Puerto Rico's smaller islands offer richer corals and fish life than off any mainland beach... The little sandy keys of Icacos, Lobos and Diablo offer clearer waters and more profuse life. This is true of the bigger offshore islands of Vieques and Culebra as well.

Corals belong to the animal kingdom, and are members of the same group of animals as jellyfish and sea anemones (Phylum: Cnidaria). The actual coral animal or 'polyp' is soft bodied, with tentacles like a sea anemone. The main difference is that corals secrete an external calcium carbonate skeleton and sea anemones do not. This hard skeleton forms the framework of coral reefs. The tiny coral polyps occupy little cups or corallites in the massive skeleton. Corals can be colonial or solitary and there are several hundred species, some are large and branching and grow rapidly at a rate of up to 10cm per year, while others are mound shaped, growing slowly at only 1cm per year.

In addition to the hard corals, there are a variety of soft corals like the common sea fan (Gorgonia ventalina). The calcium carbonate skeleton of soft corals is located within their bodies, allowing them to move with the wave action. Sea fans typically grow so that the wave action is moving over the broad plane of their bodies, so all of the sea fans in an area will be oriented in the same direction.

FEEDING THE FISH ON LOBOS ISLAND REEF

FEEDING THE FISH ON LOBOS ISLAND REEF

Reef building corals live in symbiotic association with zooxanthellae, single celled algae, which live in the tissue of the corals. The zooxanthellae produce the oxygen, that the corals need to survive, by photosynthesis; in return the algae are protected from grazing species and can access the nutrients that the coral excretes - a mutually beneficial association.

EXPLORE CORAL REEFS WITH ELENAS' SNORKELING TOURS

Corals feed on zooplankton with the use of their tentacles. During daylight they mostly remain within their protective skeleton to avoid predation, but at night the tentacles are extended to allow them to feed.

Coral colonies grow by having the polyps bud off new polyps asexually. New colonies are established by the fragmentation of skeletal pieces or through the settling of planktonic coral lava on a hard substrate. The lava are the result of sexual reproduction. More about corals

Sea urchins and a juveline Queen Anglefish, baby lobsters... even a young turtle hangs out here. You do need a motorboat to get to the spectacular reefs and a guide who knows where they are.

Elena offers a Private Charter motorboat snorkeling trip out of Fajardo.

A lot about corals, how they grow, dangers to corals.