A delivery column on a platform that's routinely cleaned. Photograph by David Doubilet

We've covered a lot of water since our last field dispatch from artificial reefs. We left fisheries biologists using ROVs to estimate fish biomass on artificial reefs off the Pensacola coast and drove west across a still battered Gulf Coast. Hurricane damage was still evident in every direction. We rolled into Lake Charles, Louisiana, late in the evening, bleary-eyed and shaking from an overdose of Starbucks and Redbull. We met our fixers Darrell and Cher Walker (True Blue Watersports), repacked the gear for a few days in the Gulf, and loaded our Sport Fisherman in the dark. Captain Keith Monroe and first mate Eric Larson pulled us off the docks at 2 a.m., and we headed into the Gulf of Mexico. Daybreak gave us a view of a forest of platforms stretching to the horizon–some manned, some not. The water closer to the coast was mud brown, useless for photography, so we pressed deep into the Gulf looking for clear water. 

Growth and encrustation on an uncleaned oil platform. Photograph by Jennifer Hayes

A production platform, Gulf of Mexico. Photograph by Jennifer Hayes

Ninety miles out, the water began to turn from brown to gray, giving us hope. We drew a collective sigh as we crossed into clear water just as we approached our target platform, 120 miles out, a structure that wasn't routinely cleaned and was covered in years of growth and encrustation.

David Doubilet photographing within the structure of an oil production platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph by Jennifer Hayes 

Our relief evaporated as as we tied into the rig. Our boat dropped a prop – straight down into a few hundred feet of water. A quick dive told us why: The shaft was broken. After a look at the extended weather and a mini-conference, we voted to stay at sea and head back with a single prop before serious weather threatened. Using the good-weather window, we quickly got into the water and moved between platforms that were routinely cleaned and those that had been left untouched. The untouched ones were encrusted with thick coral and sponge growth and carpets of barnacles. Large schools of fish were suspended between the uprights.

When weather appeared on our radar, we headed toward the coast slowly but steadily, passing tender boats delivering crew and supplies. We have photographed the complex communities of coral reefs across the planet, but the vertical reefs in the Gulf are just as visually complex and diverse in scale. They may prove increasingly important as calcium carbonate reef structures face an uncertain future, the consequence of global warming and ocean acidification.

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