For two years, I have stopped by and photographed this beautiful Acropora coral formation in Emily Bay on Norfolk Island. In my database for this colony, I called the folder 14_StairwayReef; 14 for the geographic location on a map, followed by my romantic name for it.

In November 2021, it was a healthy colony, but by January 2022, white syndrome had begun to affect it in patches. Because of the angle that I have photographed this coral, I have included examples of the patches as they cropped up in the gallery at the bottom of this post.

The white patches grew, the tissue died and algae then took over those dead patches. New patches of white syndrome would crop up over time, and gradually the colony lost more and more live tissue. The structure weakened until, finally, by 29 November 2023, we had lost some sizeable chunks. A couple of weeks later it was virtually all destroyed, just a memory and so much rubble.

It should be said, this type of coral does not live a long time. It grows fast and dies young, usually at around 25 years old or so. Swells and storm surges come through and upturn corals regularly. Having said that, to me, it looks like the white syndrome has hastened this coral colony’s demise by weakening its skeleton. Sadly this is occuring all over our reef.

Hopefully, with the annual coral spawning imminent, baby corals will be able to grow on the newly exposed substrate, unless algae gets there first.

In the photos below, you can see some of the patches, which have then overgrown with algae, although it is a little difficult to appreciate the extent of the damage.

Below are some of the individual patches. You can click on each image to enlarge and see the older, dead and overgrown algae patches that are there too.