Floating and sunken debris

Among the scarier things we occasionally see are floating refrigerators. They have enough insulation that they float high out of the water and are easy to avoid during the day, but we worry about running into something like this while returning to the island in the dark.

I'd have been more inclined to thank someone for NOT tossing their plastic bag into the lagoon.

Downwind from some inhabitated islands was sometimes a considerable amount of trash, including these disposable diapers ("pamper-fish") that would become entangled in coral.

Bottles are common scattered about on lagoon reefs. Bottled coke has not been available at Kwajalein for many years. These bottles must have been down there for some time. A couple are encrusted with fire coral.

Glass bottles do not seem to harm the environment, and in fact seem to provide a surface for various encrusting marine animals.

A plastic buoy originally set to moor boats on the reef becomes part of the reef itself, with enough heavy coral growing on it and the line to sink it below the surface.

A large tire embedded in the reef on a lagoon pinnacle near Gea Island.

Did this battery come from a flipped-over boat?

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