St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 20 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online, and conducted 20 in-person coral propagation sessions with guests. A total of 60 coral frames were checked as part of our 6-monthly monitoring, involving cleaning and repairing, and uploading new photographs to our website for our kind sponsors 🙏. In total, we conducted 20 maintenance snorkels/dives, and inspected all 224 of our coral frames around Vommuli, replacing many bleached and dead corals with new fragments as we went along. Approximately 50% of the monitored frames needed up to 60% of their coral fragments replacing, due to the high mortality following this year’s global mass coral bleaching event.
To see the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated St Regis monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so. You can Sponsor your very own complete coral frame, or Adopt a community-frame coral fragment here.
200th frame celebration 🎉 We celebrated the milestone of completing our 200th coral frame with a special coral-awareness session and a snorkelling trip for 12 students from our neighboring island, Rinbudhoo. Together with the students and resort guests, we built the frame during an event at the Whale Bar.
🪸 Adopt-A-Coral Site – Some corals are continuing to recover, albeit at a slower rate than in previous months. Mortality rates remained unchanged since September. We have replaced dead colonies on 85% of the affected frames, and expect to complete this task next month.
🪸 Whale Bar Site – New frames from last month are showing good survival rates. Approximately 60% of the coral fragments have been replaced following the high cleaching mortality. Replacement fragments were sourced from wild colonies with the highest survival rates (primarily from in front of the dive center).
🪸Dive Centre Site – Early in the month, strong currents flipped several frames, that were later relocated from the canal area to the edge of the house reef. No additional bleaching mortality has been observed; replacement fragment rates stand at 80% at this site.
🪸 Coral Spawning
At the end of October, we successfully recorded our first coral spawning event of the year. Three wild colonies of Acropora secale and one colony of Acropora millepora were observed spawning on the house reef. Additionally, five colonies with pale gametes are being closely monitored for spawning activity next month.
🎙️ Marine Talks – Four evening talk sessions were held this month, attended by seven guests. At the Kids Club, we conducted six sessions for 12 children, featuring “Shark Yoga” and “Sea Turtle Beach”, along with a special halloween-themed sharks class.
One presentation was given for 13 newly-hired resort staff. These sessions included a coral awareness talk, an overview of the island’s marine life, and information on our coral restoration efforts, ensuring the staff are knowledgeable and involved in our conservation initiatives.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – We conducted 3 dolphin cruises and one coral garden trip for a total of 15 guests. The most common species of megafauna sighted this month were eagle rays, followed by white tip reef sharks.
📱 Social Media and Marketing – Seven stories were created for Reefscapers social media, with engagement levels reaching 1K views. We also hosted six FAM (Familiarization) trips this month, where 23 travel agents from the South Africa, USA, UK, and Russia markets participated in the coral adoption program.
Leadership in Conservation: Session and Education Program Survey
On 21 October, we participated in an interactive ocean conservation session for 197 students from grades 4–6 at Kudahuvadhoo School. The talks and activities focused on leadership, teamwork, and environmental stewardship, specifically coral conservation.
Students expressed strong interest in hands-on learning, with 59% favouring swimming and snorkelling. They also showed a high awareness of marine issues, with 41% prioritising anti-littering efforts, and 26% wanting to raise awareness within their community. This feedback helped shape a 6-month pilot program for Dhaalu Atoll, aiming to increase ocean conservation knowledge by 50% through experiential learning and regular assessments to track their engagement and progress in coral conservation.
Sheraton Full Moon
Juvenile boxfish spotted on the reef …
… it’s always a delight to spot these curious super-cute fish!
This month, we built 14 new coral frames, which in total added almost 600 new coral fragments to the reef. We were delighted to plant our 700th frame kindly sponsored by ProShot & Tidal Sports. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 48 existing coral frames, and uploaded the photos to our website for our sponsors.
To see the progress of your own frame, please visit our dedicated Sheraton monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.
Coral Propagation Sites
Although many coral colonies have died, recovery from bleaching is being increasingly observed, both on our frames and the natural reefs.
- Blue Hole – Frames are being buried by the seasonally shifting sands around the island; we have been lifting some of them, but a lot more work needs to be done here in the coming weeks.
- Water Villas – Maintenance work is continuing, and with a lot of extra help from our resort colleagues, all the bleached/dead frames in the third line have been cleaned and are ready to be replanted. We are not focusing on recycling as new fragments are bleaching more at this site.
- Dive Centre – We continue to fragment the Acropora muricata and A. aspera at the bottom of the pyramids which suffered from macroalgae growth, but is otherwise healthy. These are now supporting the planting of new coral frames and also recycled frames..
- Boat Garden – This site has filled up very quickly with our new post-bleaching frames. We have reached capacity, and plan to expand area in November-December.
Maintaining our frames at the Dive Centre site
Pink whiptail ray at ‘Stingray Point’
Coral Research
Coral Resilience Experiment – We aim to test some of our most resilient corals, survivors of the harsh conditions of the 2024 bleaching event. Five frames were recycled for testing; six species of coral fragments were harvested from the Blue Hole, fragmented further and attached to the five frames. The frames were photographed and located to their designated sites and various depths.
Coral Spawning – we scheduled several night dives around the full moon of 17 October, looking for signs of coral spawning at our Dive Centre site. We successfully observed (and photographed) spawning in 21 separate colonies of Acropora secale. Katelyn’s excellent night photos (below) show the mature coral gametes ‘bundling’, and then releasing into the water column.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – In total, 44 guests joined for the Maldivian Journey snorkelling activity this month, averaging 15 guests per trip, and lasting 68 minutes. We also joined 4 Snorkelling Safaris, and conducted 5 additional one-on-one sessions for guests. Megafauna sightings included Bottlenose and Spinner dolphins, sea turtles, and a rare sighting of a marbled stingray during one of our night dives. A nurse shark was spotted beneath our coral pyramids that had unfortunately become entangled in a rope, likely for quite some time (photo, below). Thankfully, our resort colleagues were able to successfully remove the rope.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Two dolphin cruises were conducted, and the Spinner dolphins put on quite a show for us!
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 66 guests attended marine talks this month on 18 separate days, averaging 38 minutes’ duration.
Rare sighting of a marbled sting ray
Hawksbill sea turtle
nurse shark entangled in rope
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – much busier this month, with a total of 40 guests enjoying the activity, averaging 55 minutes duration.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club Field Trip – We had 48 children join the marine field trips, averaging 39 minutes duation.
📱 Social Media – Content shared during October included 5 posts, 55 stories and 7 reels. The post with the highest reach was a reel showcasing how we outplant our coral frames here at the Sheraton, with 20k plays and ~900 likes. We also shared our “Meet the Team” posts and stories, offering a glimpse into the daily life of a marine biologist here at the Sheraton.
The total accounts reached for the month was 122k (+100% compared to the September); engagement increased 117%, and new followers went up by 360 to take our total following to well over 34k.
🪸 Hosted Visits – We welcomed VIP guests this month, guided them snorkelling around the coral restoration site, and built our 700th frame with them.
