St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 5 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 15 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 5 maintenance snorkels/dives, and inspected all of our coral frames around Vommuli island.
To check the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated St Regis monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.
In preparation for the upcoming resort work scheduled to start at the end of June, large wild coral colonies from the house reef on the Dive Centre side were relocated. A total of 38 colonies were moved and securely placed at the AAC site, where they will be monitored for adaptation and growth. We also relocated 15 coral frames, primarily made up of: Acropora hyacinthus, A. cytherea, A. tenuis. They were positioned on top of coral rubble and have shown encouraging signs of adapting well to their new environment.
🪸 Dive Centre & Whale Bar Sites – A total of 92 coral frames were relocated from the Dive Centre to the Whale Bar site in June. Combined with earlier transfers, this brings the total to 135 frames relocated over the past two months, to both the lagoon and Whale Bar areas. The frames have been distributed along both sides of the bar, extending outward to cover approximately half of the reef flat in front of Alba Beach.
In the coming months, the next priority will be to remap the precise location of each relocated frame to ensure accurate tracking for monitoring and to encourage guest engagement during snorkelling visits.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – In June, one Dolphin Cruise and one Coral Garden excursion were attended, with a total of seven guests participating. Megafauna sightings were recorded during routine maintenance visits across various sites around the island. The most commonly observed species this month were blacktip reef sharks and whitetip reef sharks. Other sightings included stingrays, eagle rays, and hawksbill turtles.
🎙️ Marine Talks – Two evening talk sessions were held this month, with four guests participating. At the Kids Club, two sessions were conducted, featuring “Shark Yoga” and “Whales and Dolphins Yoga,” with a total of five children attending. Additionally, one presentation was given to five new hire staff members about the coral restoration work conducted at the resort.
📱 Socials – One reel and one post were published on Reefscapers’ social media channels this month, reaching 14.5K views.
🌊 Oceans Day Celebration (8 June) – We organised conservation activities involving both staff and guests. A total of 13 staff members participated in a snorkelling reef cleanup, removing marine debris from shallow reef areas. In addition, a scuba diving cleanup was conducted in collaboration with the Dive Centre team, joined by two guests, targeting deeper reef zones to maximize impact. We also hosted a cocktail event where guests actively participated in building two medium coral frames.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 10 new coral frames (adding ~450 coral fragments to the reef), plus we also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 103 existing coral frames across all our sites, uploading the photos to our website for our kind sponsors. We actively replace any dead corals, adding a further total of ~2,000 new fragments to our existing frames.
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
At our Dive Centre site, most of the corals from the relocation project earlier this year continue to do great. This month, we lifted and readjusted the boulder corals at due to sand movement. Overall, thanks to regular maintenance, this site continues to grow well, and is in good overall health.
At the Water Villas site, we continue to clear and clean our frames from algae as we perform our maintenance and photo tasks. We will continue to repopulate many frames which were impacted by the 2024 bleaching in the upcoming months.
We relocated some Dive Centre frames to our Eagle Ray Rock site. The coral frames are growing very well and we are excited to see this area develop in the future. We have noticed more fish around the coral frames at Eagle Ray Rock and we hope the marine life will continue to grow.
We reached an exciting milestone in June, as we planted our 800th frame for the Sheraton project. This was planted by Chris who was here on a media trip. Additionally, we celebrated World Ocean Day by planting a medium coral frame (65 corals) with guests.
Huraa Ocean Fest: World Ocean Day
On 12 June, we joined our colleagues from Four Seasons Kuda Huraa to co-host the Ocean Fest on the local island of Huraa. There were around 400
local students who interacted with many ocean-themed games and face painting, and made a pledge to the ocean. This was the first year of this event, and it was incredibly rewarding to see so many young people with a passion to the protect our oceans. We send a huge thank you to Four Seasons resorts Maldives for hosting us, and to Sheraton for holding down the fort in our absence.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – Three ‘Snorkelling Safari’ excursions were joined this month, plus an additional four guided guest snorkels on request. Megafauna sightings included a variety of ray species, along with an increase in turtle sightings; blacktip reef sharks and spotted eagle rays were the most frequently sighted.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Six dolphin cruises were attended in June, with Spinner dolphins recorded on five cruises, and Pilot whales on one cruise (large photo, top of section).
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 46 guests attended, across our 12 marine talks, averaging 42 minutes. For World Ocean Day, we hosted the marine talk inside Anchorage bar followed by Trivia night.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Three EcoSort challenges were carried out this month, with a total of 11 guests.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – We hosted four Marine Field trips for kids’ club, totalling 14 people averaging 33 minutes duration.
📱 Social Media – Content shared during June included 3 posts, 9 stories and 7 reels. The post with the highest reach featured students building a coral frame (at Kuda Huraa), clocking up 21k views. The total account followers continues to hover around 35k.
👋 Team Updates – We said farewell to Katie, our Assistant Marine Biologist, after 1 year’s invaluable contribution to our Sheraton project. We wish her the very best of luck as she continues working with Reefscapers at Four Seasons Kuda Huraa.
