In practice both types of Urchin may live on the same terrain on Cobblers Reef as this sandy shot shows. Perhaps the Sargassum weed down here is helping to nourish a revival, although Sargassum floats and urchins graze the sea bed. Cobblers are alleged to feed on algae that harm the live coral but Sea Eggs seem to eat seaweed living on coral rubble or dead rocks. The photographer who had seen none inside Cobblers Reef off Crane Beach for two or three years was encouraged to find five or six juvenile white urchins in an area of about five metres square and about 50 m inside the top of the Inner Reef. There was a 2-week open season in September 2004 for taking them but since then they have become increasingly rare throughout the island. It is (as of 2015) illegal to take the edible Sea Eggs. Conversely, edible and much appreciated white Sea Urchins, sometimes considered an aphrodisiac, are known locally as "Sea Eggs". In Barbados long spined, black Sea Urchins (not usually eaten by humans) were traditionally known as Cobblers.
Satellite View of the northern part of Cobblers Reef by NASA. It lies about 1.6 km off the beach and tops at about 12 to 15 m depth. The outer portion is rarely visible from the cliffs, but can usually be seen easily from a boat sited above it, in doubt a mask and snorkel will solve the issue. The shallowest coral is often less than 3 m deep and its presence is easily seen from the beaches and cliffs along the whole length of the reef except in the very calmest of weather. There is an inner reef on top of which the ocean waves break 800 m off the shore. The reef runs parallel to the south east coast for approximately 15 km from South Point, north east past Kittridge point, in the direction of East Point Lighthouse round the corner on Ragged Point. Please click on icons to enlarge and obtain more information about images.Ĭobblers Reef is a complex coral reef off the South East Coast of Barbados, Caribbean, an island with five separate coastlines. This guide was prepared on the basis of 17 years of study and diving with local divers in an aim to fill in as many of the gaps in published knowledge as possible. Standard diving publications regarding Barbados hardly ever mention it, in spite of its visual prominence. Cobblers Reef is very apparent along the whole 16 km of the south east coast of Barbados, and local divers and fishermen dive and fish it a great deal, but they generally publish very little.
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