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 0 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 🙏. Instead, we focused on conducting 12 maintenance snorkels/dives, to inspect and repair our coral frames at the Whale Bar and Adopt-a-Coral sites (see details, below).
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.
🪸 Maintenance & Monitoring
This month’s stormy weather had a significant impact on the Whale Bar site. The combination of strong winds and ocean currents, coupled with some newly installed wave-breakers has altered the wave dynamics in the area. Unfortunately, around 75% of the coral frames at this site were flipped upside down, causing damage to the upper portions of many coral colonies, and in some cases affecting the entire frame structure. The younger frames, less than 1.5 years old, were not heavy enough to withstand strong wave energy. In contrast, the more mature, heavier frames showed no signs of damage.
In the coming months, we expect to repair, reattach, and stabilise the broken colonies to support their continued recovery and growth. They will be relocated to the Adopt-a-Coral site.
Despite the ongoing construction of the wave-breakers around the island, the Adopt-a-Coral site continues to show healthy coral growth and overall stability. There was an increase in sedimentation towards the end of the month, however, no negative effects have been observed on our corals so far. We will continue our regular patrols and monitoring activities throughout November.
📱 Socials – During this month we created media footage for the Spain and Latin America market for the resort. Interviews and pictures were taken and provided for travel agencies from that region.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – we attended two Dolphin Cruises and one Turtle Quest, enjoyed by a total of 14 guests. Megafauna sightings included whitetip and blacktip reef sharks, and we are always delighted to spot our resident octopuses around the Dive Centre site.
We conducted 2 in-depth “Day with a Marine Biologist” sessions for two teenage guests, who expressed interest in studying marine biology. They visited our coral restoration sites and attended two additional marine biology sessions to further explore the field.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 16 new coral frames (adding ~680 coral fragments to the reef), and ending the month by planting frame number SH860. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) an impressive total of 143 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 ~1500 new fragments to our existing frames. We continue to spot any corallivorous species, removing 98 Drupella snails and one cushion star this month.
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, many frames required lifting from the seasonally shifting sands. The frames experienced less algal growth and have shown good rates of coral growth. Overall, we are happy with the dive centre pyramids as the new relocated coral continues to do well. We experienced some triggerfish damage on coral colonies; we used the broken coral pieces to make new frames.
Scuba dives at the Blue Hole were completed to lift many frames due to sand movement, and we focused our maintenance efforts at the Water Villa site, where many frames were repopulated and monitored. This site has come a long way over the last few months, which has been a great accomplishment for the project. Having an additional team member has significantly helped with this.
At the Boat Garden site, newer coal fragments are showing healthy attachment and growth. We are not expanding this site due to the tricky SCUBA access, but we continue to monitor these frames and we hope to get more maintenance work done here over the next few months.
At our Gili’s Falhu site, 16 frames had flipped due to the rough weather conditions; thankfully the damage was minimal and the frames were easily righted again.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – 9 Snorkelling Safari Excursions were joined this month, plus 4 private tours and 3 FAM trips for an overall total of 72 happy guests. The 72 recorded megafauna sightings comprised mainly of blacktip reef sharks, followed by spotted eagle rays & bottlenose dolphins.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Ten dolphin cruises were attended this month, and we successfully sighted Spinner dolphins on most cruises; pilot whales were seen on one cruise (photos, below).
🎙️ Marine Talks – we held talks for 7 audiences this month, totalling 27 guests and averaging 36 minutes.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – 5 challenges were carried out this month, averaging 27 minutes duration.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – we hosted four Marine Field trips for kids’ club, for a total of 6 people, each averaging around 20 minutes duration.
📱 Instagram – this month we shared 3 posts, 20 stories and 6 reels to Instagram. The best performing post was about a turtle nest at Landaa Giraavaru, which clocked up 16k+ views.
🤿 This month, with thanks to Sheraton, we were able to host Amelia (Reefscapers Asst Manager at Landaa Giraavaru), who assisted with coral maintenance at the dive centre site. These kinds of task force exchanges between Reefscapers teams are valuable for cross-training and gaining insights into different aspects of the job. Sheraton also kindly sponsored our new in-water team uniform, which will help with brand awareness and marketing around the island.
🤿 This month we welcomed Harry, our new marine intern, for a six-month role that will stretch well into 2026. As our coral project has grown, the additional help has allowed us to expand our workload both above and below the waves.
