Today we collected coral fragments from donor colonies on a healthy reef, brought them into the boat, and prepared them for the coral nursery. The last dives of the day were to deposit the coral fragments into the nursery.
Adam and Manoj on the way out to the first dive site.
The Reef Ranger is our dive boat.
Andrew Hewett and a team of marine biologists from the Phuket Marine Biological Center harvested the coral fragments.
Andrew is examining the buckets of fragments. Each colony is to be kept in a separate bucket to minimize stress to the corals.
We divided the students into teams to put the coral fragments into tygon tubes.
This team is Natalie, divemaster Jade, and Jordan.
Instructor Chris and his team are putting the tubes into a plastic mesh rack.
We prepared 26 racks today.
In addition to the staghorn coral that we worked on first, we also worked with larger foliose coral species and tied them to the racks with wires.
Raechel and Mikayla are rightfully proud of their work.
As they were completed, the racks were suspended below the water surface to keep the coral fragments alive.
After all the racks were finished, we swam them down to the nursery platforms. Here is Zach transporting a rack.
Maria.
Mikayla.
Manoj.
The platform holds 14 racks and there are two platforms. These fragments will grow here for a year and next year's class will plant them into a dead reef.
All the racks are attached to the nursery platforms with cable ties.
Cable tying requires someone above and below the racks so the ties can be fed through the holes.
After a long day, everyone is satisfied and happy. Here are Shanon and Raechel.
Dom.
Mikayla.
Natalie.
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