TOURIST PARADISE
Carib’s extraordinary popularity among tourists is easily explained: the warm sea all year round, the fabulous beauty of nature, a decent level of service, an extensive selection of hotels (for every taste and budget) and a huge “menu” of various entertainments: interesting excursions, an abundance of historical and natural attractions, water and “Land” sports, restaurants, discos, night clubs.
A distinctive feature of the Caribbean region is a large selection of diverse leisure options: each state here has its own “specialization”.
For example, in Barbados, English national traditions were firmly rooted in life, the rest here is mostly measured and calm.
In Grenada, known as the “island of spices”, there are many museums, botanical gardens, historical sights and chic snow-white beaches.
Magnificent hotels of the highest level, excellent conditions for diving and the famous SPA centers of Turks and Caicos attract the attention of respectable visitors.
Saint Lucia has the proud title of Garden Island, being one of the most beautiful islands of the Caribbean. As if to counterbalance it, in the Caribbean Sea there is also the desert island of Aruba, with chic hotels and enchanting nightlife.
The Bahamas offers tourists all kinds of accommodation options, from secluded small hotels to noisy, vibrant hotel complexes.
And on Curacao it is simply impossible not to go to one of the many bars to order a glass of delicious blue drink!
BOTTOM RELIEF
The bottom relief of the sea is characterized by roughness – with numerous uplifts and hollows, underwater ridges, the bottom is conventionally divided into 5 main basins: Grenada (4120 m), Colombian (4532 m), Venezuelan (5420 m), Yucatan (5055 m) and Bartlett, with deep-sea Caymanov gutter (7090 m., it is the world’s deepest underwater volcanic fault). The Caribbean is considered to be seismically active, underwater earthquakes are frequent here, often causing tsunamis.
Magnificent caribbean sea
The deep-water coating of the seabed is calcareous foraminifera silts and clays.
CARIBBEAN SEA: FLORA AND FAUNA
The flora and fauna of the Caribbean are unusually rich and diverse. Vast coral structures are typical tropical coral communities of living organisms. The huge variety and amazing beauty of the forms of the water world attract here and amaze with their magnificence connoisseurs of underwater landscapes and the most sophisticated divers from around the world. Although the local flora is not quantitatively distinguished, it is characterized by a rich species composition. In the Caribbean, you can find whole underwater fields of macroalgae. In shallow areas, vegetation is mainly concentrated in areas of coral reefs. Here, algae such as tortoiseshell thalassia (lat.Thalassia lestudinum), cymododcea algae (lat.Cymodoceaceae), and sea rupia (lat.Ruppia maritima) are found here. Chlorophyll algae grow in deep water areas. Caribbean macroalgae are represented by dozens of different species.
Phytoalgae are very poorly represented here, however, as in all tropical seas.
The fauna of the sea is richer and more diverse than the flora. Various fish, marine mammals and all kinds of bottom animals live here.
The Caribbean bottom fauna is represented by numerous sea snakes, worms, mollusks (gastropods, cephalopods, bivalves, etc.), various crustaceans (crustaceans, crabs, spiny lobsters, etc.) and echinoderms (hedgehogs, starfish). Intestinal representatives consist of a rich spectrum of coral polyps (including reef-forming ones) and all kinds of jellyfish.
Turtles of the Cayman Islands Sea turtles live in the Caribbean: here you can find a green turtle (soup), a big-headed tortoise (loggerhead), a bisssa or a carriage real, as well as the Atlantic riddle – a species of the smallest and fastest growing sea turtles. When the famous Christopher Columbus at the beginning of the XVI century. crossed the Caribbean Sea in the region of the present Cayman Islands, the road to his ships was literally blocked by a vast herd of green turtles. Struck by the abundance of these marine animals, Columbus called the group of islands he discovered “Las Tortugas” (Spanish. Las Tortugas – “turtles”).
For centuries, turtles have served as a source of food for travelers, sailors, pirates and whalers at the Las Tortugas. But this beautiful name, unfortunately, did not take root, as countless tortoise herds did not survive. As a result of thoughtless human activity (uncontrolled long-term fishing, ruin of tortoise egg-laying, ruthless pollution of the sea), where in the old days sailboats struggled their way through a dense screen of teeming tortoise shells, now it’s not easy to meet even one individual.
Marine mammals have settled in the warm, gentle waters of the Caribbean. Large cetaceans (sperm whales, humpback whales) and several dozen species of smaller dolphins are found here.
