St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 4 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 56 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 12 maintenance snorkels/dives, and inspected all 256 of our coral frames around Vommuli, replacing many bleached and dead corals with new fragments as we went along. Approximately 20% of the monitored frames needed up to 30% 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.
🪸 Adopt-A-Coral Site – Corals have shown good recovery rates of approximately 60% after bleaching event from 5 months ago. We have now repaired and maintained 90% of our coral frames at this site.
🪸Dive Centre Site – Dead colonies have been replaced on up to 90% of the frames at this site. Some mortality of new fragments has been observed, likely due to the increase of suspended sediment in the area.
🪸 Whale Bar Site – New frames have shown 100% recovery of their fragments. 70% of the coral fragments have been replaced overall on the frames here. Katelyn from Sheraton visited us this month, to help with maintenance and check ups.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of two Evening Talk sessions were given, with 7 guests participating. At the Kids’ Club, we conducted 3 sessions, featuring “Shark Yoga” and “Sea Turtle Beach” attended by 16 children, and held a photo session.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – This month we joined one dolphin cruise and one coral garden trip, with a total of 18 guests. Megafauna sightings included eagle rays and hawksbill turtles.
📱 Other – St Regis was granted “Green global” certification this month, recognising our Reefscapers coral restoration, as well as the conservation awareness and environmental education given to guests, staff, and local students in Dhaalu atoll.
A group of 6 ‘Smart Cookies’ students (age 10-12) from NJ, USA (pictured below), participated in a robotics competition with the remote guidance of Reefscapers team members. They they held a community awareness event, collected funds for coral adoption, and devised an innovative solution for coral restoration. Their work was placed 3rd in the competition, and granted an ‘Engineering Excellence’ award at the North NJ FLL Championship!
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 9 new coral frames, which in total added 375 new coral fragments to the reef. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 34 existing coral frames across all our sites, and uploaded the photos to our website for our kind 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
- Blue Hole – We continue to lift frames at his site, and note any frames with missing tags.
- Water Villas – This site was largely avoided during November, due to nesting triggerfish which are known to be aggressive towards passing snorkellers!
- Dive Centre – Removal of dead corals post-bleaching continues on our large pyramid structures. We have made good progress with the branching corals at the bottom of the pyramids, replacing any coral fragments eaten by fish and snails. We remove any marine debris that we encounter, including fishing hooks/lines, plus some construction sacks that drifted into the lagoon and had become wrapped around coral frames.
- Boat Garden – Maintenance dives were completed to clean and monitor frames, and we have started to expand the width of this site.
Coral Spawning Research
🗓️ 1 November New Moon – we scheduled our night diving at the Dive Centre site to monitor for coral spawning around the period of November’s New Moon. No spawning was observed, and we did not see signs of mature gamete bundling.
🗓️ 15 November Full Moon – this time, we successfully observed coral spawning in 31 separate coral colonies over 2 consecutive nights.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – In total, 21 guests joined for the Maldivian Journey snorkelling activity this month, with 4 guests per trip averaging 46 minutes duration. We also joined 7 Snorkelling Safari excursions, visiting Kurumba House Reef and Stingray Point, and conducted 4 private snorkelling sessions.
We enjoyed increased turtle sightings at the sea grass site, and spotted marbled stingrays and nurse sharks on our night dives.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Three dolphin cruises were attended, although we had to schedule around our coral spawning night diving research.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 59 guests attended 13 talks, averaging 38 minutes duration. We also held an extra private marine talk upon request.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – 30 guests enjoyed our environmental activity, spending an average of 54 minutes learning about recycling and consumption.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club Field Trip – 12 children joined our marine field trips, averaging 4 people and 27 minutes duration.
📱 Social Media – our best performing collaborative instagram reel featured aerial drone footage of a manta ray, clocking up 30k plays. Our new “Meet the Team” feature also proved popular, helping our Instagram account to reach 113k viewers this month and gain +200 new followers.
🪸 Hosted Visits – This month, we hosted five FAM trips, and welcomed Reefscapers colleagues from other centres. Clarisse (marine intern) joined us from Kuda Huraa for a few days, and proved a great help with scuba maintenance dives and monitoring for coral spawning. Reefscapers directors Thomas and Marie met with the new Sheraton management to discuss activities, marketing, and contracts. Additionally, Katelyn spent a few days at our sister resort St Regis, to cover for Hazel’s vacation.
We also hosted hospitality students from Thoddoo school, who enjoyed a marine presentation, learning about coral restoration and sustainability initiatives.
