Nicole (Nikki) Helgason is a PADI Dive Instructor with 10 years of professional dive experience. Nicole has taught scuba diving and managed dive centers around the world. Nicole has a bachelor's degree in coastal geography from the University of Victoria and is passionate about coral reefs.
Most corals are colonial animals with hundreds to thousands of tiny polyps, but solitary corals of the Indo-Pacific are a single-polyp species that lives freely on the ocean floor.
With their flowing texture and bright colors, it’s easy to mistake large polyp corals of the Indo-Pacific for soft corals. Here’s how to identify them.
Properly identifying coral can add another dimension to any reef dive. Today we’ll introduce encrusting corals of the Indo-Pacific and offer tips for identification.
Diving the Pantanal in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul offers visitors the chance to see not only anacondas, but also a wild array of marine life.
