We have evaluated performance of underwater optical communication links under conditions of turbulence and blockage. A 3 m long water column filled with sea water containing sediments and organic matter has been set up. Additional water jets have been placed in the medium to create turbulence and a motor driven paddle running with a constant rpm has been introduced to simulate conditions of blockage and added turbulence. Turbulence in the medium can cause beam wander creating random errors, while blockage blocks the data for certain duration leading to burst errors. To mitigate the errors caused by turbulence and blockage turbulence we have employed a BCH (31, 11) error correcting code with error correcting capability t = 6. We have also introduced a 31 × 31 block interleaver to improve the burst error correcting capabilities of the code. The bit error rate performance of this system has been evaluated and plots describing the improvement in reliability of information transfer across the channel as a function of transmit power (in dBm) have been plotted. This experimental study provides insight into the nature of errors that can occur in under water optical communication and the means that can be adopted to improve the reliability of information transfer across such channels.