The sea already has a lot of enemies--both man-made and natural. There's pollution, dynamite and cyanide fishing, trashes sometimes thrown into the water and is being eaten by poor creatures, and the slowly-getting-worse climate change. But aside from these serious threats to our ocean, there's also what we call "Coral Killers" or mostly known as "Crown of Thorns". These "Crown of Thorns" are one-type of starfish which feed on corals. These starfish feed off the corals by digesting the thin layer of soft tissue of it's skeleton and sucking down the available nutrients, causing the coral to die. They also pose a serious threat to humans since they are also poisonous once you accidentally stepped on its spikes.
credits: google images
And so, as an advocate to protect mother nature and to prevent the lovely coral reefs of Moalboal, Cebu from being destroyed, I, my boyfriend and some friends set out early today to slowly rid the ocean of these monsters.
I, my boyfriend and our friends love to come to Moalboal every weekends just to enjoy the serenity of being with nature and to also witness again the beauty that lies underneath the water. We love to swim, snorkel and dive. But after we heard that there are sightings of these "Crown of Thorns" in the coral reef underneath, we immediately took action, especially my boyfriend 
So, we made today's swim a meaningful one. After a couple of hours, my boyfriend and his friends managed to capture 5 "Crown of Thorns" and since I'm not that skillful when it comes to diving just yet, I securely held on to the jar where we stored them as these monsters still have the ability to move and crawl its way up in the opening of the jar. The coral reef under the blue waters of Moalboal is just too precious to be slowly destroyed by these monsters. The reef is also home to a lot of magnificent creatures such as fishes, sea turtles, and even dolphins.
These are the "Crown of Thorns" we captured and placed in the jar.
After being lifted out of the water, we noticed how the "Crown of Thorns" shrinked in size. And to fully exterminate these monsters from the face of the Earth, we dried them out under the heat of the scorching sun and buried them somewhere since the spikes are still dangerous.
I feel very good and fulfilled today as it is my first time to actually see these creatures in action and how they look like attached to corals. They sure look nasty. I salute my boyfriend as well for his passion and dedication to the sea and his friends for helping out. At least we're able to get rid of 5 "Coral Killers" today and that surely makes a great difference already to the life underwater. We'll capture more the next time.
Thank you for reading fellow Steemians. Make sure to watch out for these creatures the next time you're out in the beach.
And always grateful to Sir Terry (
Til the next Ulog!