St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 5 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. We also conducted 26 maintenance snorkels/dives and monitored a total of 17 existing frames – our twice-yearly monitoring involves cleaning and repairing frames, and uploading new photographs to our website for our kind sponsors 🙏
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.
🪸 Monitoring for Coral Bleaching
During the global mass coral bleaching event of 2024, bleaching on the house reef reached ~35% coverage. In April this year, bleaching levels are significantly lower, with up to 15% of colonies showing some paling and bleaching. The exceptional low tides this month caused some of our frames at the Whale Bar site to sit in very shallow depths for significant periods of time. Overall, no major bleaching impacts have been recorded to date, and we hope the onset of the monsoon clouds and rain in early May will help reduce the thermal stress.
Although bleaching on both the house reef and our coral frames have remained low this year, NOAA forecasts continue to indicate “Warning” level for the coming month. In response, we installed 5 shading structures during the second week of April, covering half the coral frames at our Adopt-A-Coral site. Our shade structures were constructed from PVC frames and mesh-covering, and we them at a height of 0.3–0.5m above our coral frames. The structures have attracted a little macroalgal growth, which in turn has attracted various herbivorous species that have been grazing in the new shaded refuge areas.
Positive responses to shading are already evident. Among branching corals, frame SR0272 (unshaded) began showing signs of stress, with all colonies exhibiting paling by the last week of April. In contrast, frame SR0081 (shaded) showed no signs of bleaching or paling during the same period.
Marine Education & Awareness
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – We attended two dolphin cruises, enjoyed by a total of 8 guests. Megafauna sightings have included eagle rays and blacktip reef sharks, along with occasional whitetips and hawksbill turtles. Octopuses continue to be found at our Whale Bar site this month.
📱 Socials – A new reel and blog post were published to highlight Phebe’s experiences during her six-month internship (read Phebe’s blog). She has now completed her Marine Biology Internship at The St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort. Her contributions to the project were highly valuable and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours!
![Marine Biology Internship Maldives [Phebe with Hazel]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Marine-Biology-Internship-Maldives-Phebe-2-800.jpg "Marine Biology Internship Maldives [Phebe with Hazel]")
![Marine Biology Internship Maldives [Phebe]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Reefscapers-at-St-Regis-Maldives-8-800.jpg "Marine Biology Internship Maldives [Phebe]")
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 10 new coral frames (adding ~420 coral fragments to the reef), kindly sponsored by guests and the resort, and we ended the month by planting frame number SH918. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) an impressive total of 193 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 ~650 new fragments to our existing frames, and continue to spot and remove any corallivorous species (6 Drupella snails 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
Blue Hole & Water Villas – Over the last month, we have experienced a seasonal increase in water temperature which has impacted these shallow sites the most. We have reduced repopulation efforts here because of this, as we don’t want to cause further stress to the bleaching corals. We have a lot of Montipora digitata growing at the water villa site and it appears to be resilient to the increased water temperatures.
Dive Centre – We have harvested some coral fragments from the resilient Montipora digitata (above), repopulating 2 shallow-water frames at the dive centre site for close monitoring.
Gili’s Falhu – Frames continue to do very well, and we completed monitoring here this month. Due to the great growth rates of the corals here, we have been relocating some to the dive centre site. We have also been in contact with the sponsors of Gili’s reef. This reef is a lovely remembrance of young Gili who loved the ocean and we look forward to welcoming them to the island at the end of May.
Coral Reproduction Research
Full Moon (2 April) period – we conducted surveys at the Dive Centre over a 12 night period, recording a total of 587 spawning colonies across eight different species of Acropora.
New Moon (17 April) period – Night diving continued at the dive centre for the April New Moon period, where we recorded a total of 546 spawning corals across nine different Acropra species.
Huge milestone! – We witnessed coral spawning in a large quantity of Acropora muricata colonies, which had mostly been planted after the 2024 bleaching event. It was very rewarding to see all these colonies grow over the last 2 years, and finally reproduce! This was our biggest recorded spawning since the bleaching event, which will help support the resilience of the wider reef systems.
Coral Bleaching Surveys
We commenced our annual bleaching surveys at the end of March at the Water Villas and Dive Centre sites. This was due to the seasonal increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) affecting the whole of the Maldives, and the forecasts issued by the NOAA Coral Reef Bleaching system. We expect the water to cool down from May onwards, so we should see corals showing less signs of stress.
For the surveys, we followed the same MMRI coral bleaching protocol from 2024, surveying 1,247 coral colonies using the MMRI colour-coded score system.
Dive Centre – 320 coral colonies are being surveyed, on small frames (4.5m deep) to the right side of the coral pyramids. Based on our transects, “healthy” corals (score of 1) have decreased by 11% since the end of March, and “paling-bleaching” coral (score of 2 to 5) have increased by 25%.
Water Villas – of the 336 coral colonies are being surveyed, health has decreased by 55%, and bleaching has increased by 56% since the end of last month.
Marine Life
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 38 guests attended marine talks this month over twelve sessions, averaging 41 minutes.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Three dolphin cruises were attended, and we sighted pods of spinner dolphins and pilot whales.
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – Ten Snorkel Safari excursions were joined this month, plus six private guided guest snorkels on request by the dive centre. Five of these were guest snorkels (one including a guided snorkel for World Earth Day), and one additional snorkel was for staff orientation and awareness.
Across all activities we sighted a variety of megafauna, in terms of numbers these were mainly blacktip reef sharks, cowtail stingrays, and pink whiptail rays. But it was also exciting to see smaller numbers of different species including: whitetip reef shark, hawksbill turtle, green turtle, ornate eagle ray, spotted eagle ray, porcupine ray. Additionally, we spotted a juvenile nurse shark under our coral pyramid during a night dive, plus a rare sighting of an ornate eagle ray at Jetty-101.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Four EcoSort challenges were carried out this month, enjoyed by 10 guests and lasting on average 34 minutes. We have improved the activity with colourful marine decorations and resourced prizes.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – We hosted three Marine Field Trips for Kids Club totalling four guests for 25 minutes average duration. We have officially launched our new ‘Junior Marine Biologist’ activity for young guests to learn more about the ocean.
📱 Instagram – during April we uploaded 4 posts, 6 reels, and 54 stories. Out top performer was a reel featuring marine students lifting and repopulating partially-sunken coral frames, which clocked up 25k views. Compared to last month, overall reach was up 260% and interactions were up 300%, thanks in large part to James, our new group comms expert based at Landaa.
Team News
This month we welcomed Emily who is completing her marine biology internship with us. She has made great progress over her first month and has launched a new media project to highlight the varied tasks of a marine biologist in the Maldives. Many thanks to everyone for making her feel welcome!
Emily’s first month: “This month has been an absolute whirlwind, in the best possible way! I have learned coral monitoring and maintenance techniques during both freediving and scuba diving, and have already gained a great deal of new experience. We have visited the Gili’s, Water Villas and Dive Centre sites, and I’m looking forward to working at the Boat Garden soon.
I have attended several snorkel safari and dolphin cruise excursions collecting megafauna data – incredibly exciting, as it allowed me to see various megafauna species that I’ve never seen before! All in all, I have loved every second of my first month. The team have been incredibly welcoming, and I have been able to get to grips with our daily tasks. Looking forward to the next 2 months.”
