Swimming amongst the seagrass beds and grazing halos off Key West

While in Key West recently, we also had a chance to get a quick look at the grazing halos that are about 8 kms offshore within the Western Sambo Ecological Reserve. Years ago, Dr. Tom Adam pointed these out to me on Google Earth, and they’re still some of the clearest examples of grazing halos we’ve seen anywhere in the world. I’ve always been curious about what the patch reef communities within the halos look like. It turns out they’re quite beautiful, with lots of sea fans and sea whips and fairly high live coral cover (though no staghorn or elkhorn, at least at the ones we visited). There were also more predatory fish than I expected to see for a place as heavily fished as the Keys. The halo itself was as clear as you’d expect from the imagery, with essentially bare sand adjacent to the reef. This bare area extends for about 6-8 metres, at which point the seagrass becomes increasingly dense and tall – just as we’d expect from theory and the satellite imagery.