La Guaira Bank
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La Guaira Bank (Spanish: El Placer de La Guaira) is an underwater ridge that is approximately 12 miles off the coast from the city of La Guaira in Venezuela. The bank is approximately 12 miles long from east to west and 4 miles wide from north to south, and it rises from 140 fathoms in the surrounding area to 50 fathoms. The area provides the structure deep-sea animals, and other organism such as gorgonians, sponges, and coral, require for ocean currents to bring their food to them. Westerly currents flow off the coast of Venezuela, and the bank acts as a barrier to this current, creating an upwelling of nutrients to the ocean surface from deep-water stockpiles. These nutrients fuel an explosion of planktonic plant and animal growth, and attract larger animals such as whales, porpoises, seabirds, and large pelagics such as tuna, sharks, wahoo, dolphinfish, and four different types of marlin. It is considered one of the top sport fishing destinations of the world due to the unusually high numbers of blue marlin, white marlin, sailfish, and spearfish that congregate at different seasons, and are available year round.
The Venezuelan government, understanding the importance of the sport fishing industry to the community as well as the need to protect this fishery, has enacted regulations that protect these waters from industrial commercial fishing by establishing a fifty-mile-long protection area, allowing only small-scale traditional fishing.
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