Volunteer Haitian Divers Hope to Aid Ailing Coral Reef, and Themselves.

COTES DES ARCADINS, Haiti -- It was an immaculately clear midsummer morning, a perfect day for diving. No trash had yet washed up on the beach. A dozen volunteers, all excited, some a bit apprehensive, donned flippers and masks and shimmied into the bathtub-warm sea, eager to join a team of eco-divers responsible for surveying, and perhaps one day helping save, Haiti's endangered coral reefs. Only one thing stood in their way: For most of them -- like Jessika Laloi, 21 -- this was their first time swimming in the ocean. Until a few months ago, Ms. Laloi had not even known how to dog paddle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]