Four Seasons Team Diaries: April 2026

At Landaa this month, we transplanted 23 new coral frames, kindly sponsored by guests (5), the Resort (18), and online (0), adding 1010 new coral fragments to the reef. New frames were outplanted mainly at our House Reef Dive Site and under the guest water villas. We also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) 181 coral frames, with a focus on Bissie’s memorial Reef and the House Reef Dive Site.
Two large Resort frames were made to celebrate both Earth Day 2026 and the arrival of the new batch of Four Seasons Apprentices (2026-2027 intake). The staff frames were planted under the Wedding Pavilion. Due to elevated water temperatures, we have been planting the newly constructed frames in deeper waters in an attempt to reduce the extent of coral bleaching.

To see the progress of your own frame, please visit our dedicated Four Seasons monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.

Coral Bleaching Monitoring

We conducted our second round of coral bleaching monitoring on the House Reef and the Elephant patch of frames near the Spa. The tagged coral colonies at depths of 5m and 10m are paling slightly. The sea surface temperatures have been around 30ºC since we started monitoring the bleaching; however, the monsoon season has thankfully started to bring more clouds and rain, thus reducing the intensity of the sun. Nonetheless, the temperature of the sea remains hot, so it depends on how much longer the thermal stress will persist (‘degree heating weeks’, DHW).
Overall, we have noticed a lot of paling and some bleaching on the shallow House Reef (1m to 3m) but no actual mortality as of yet. Most of the bleaching recorded at the Elephant patch (1m depth) is seen in Acropora millepora, alongside a few colonies of Acropora digitifera. Approximately 1-2 colonies per frame are bleaching (out of a maximum of 38 coral colonies in total on the frames). Photos below, of paling and bleaching corals.

Coral Spawning

We had all been waiting in anticipation for the April Full Moon (FM) period, as it brings one of the busiest spawning months of the year! We rallied round the whole team and also recruited some of our Resort colleagues, as we needed all the help we could get from a team of free divers and scuba divers to record this wonderful natural phenomenon.
The April full moon (FM) was on 2 April, so we ‘jumped’ around this period for 12 consecutive nights, looking for signs of spawning. In total, we recorded 187 colonies in the process of spawning, including massives, species of Goniastrea and Acropora, plus single colonies of Galaxea and Cyphastrea. We observed that shallower corals spawned earlier than at deeper sites.

At Kuda Huraa this month, our coral experts transplanted 17 new frames, and monitored and repopulated 95 growing coral frames, across all our coral restoration sites around the island, with a particular focus on dead coral removal at the House Reef wall restoration site. We also observed intensified coral bleaching at our shallow sites and developed a methodology to assess bleaching across three of our restoration areas. In addition, it was a busy month for guest engagement with many coral frame planting sessions and welcoming back a return guest to learn coral restoration techniques alongside the MDC coral team. April was also a significant month for coral spawning, with spawning observed in 120 colonies across 10 species.

To see the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated Four Seasons monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.

We added two new Kids Club frames and ten guest-sponsored frames to our Pyramid site on House Reef. An additional five small frames were planted from various frame planting activities: World Earth Day, Risatec Reef, two Junior Marine Savers activities and a school visit. In total, the seventeen new frames planted this month contained 875 coral fragments, including: Acropora latistella, Acropora tenuis, Acropora muricata, Pocillopora verrucosa.

Coral Predators

Corallivorous species remain a persistent pressure on reef health, necessitating regular and targeted removal efforts across restoration sites. During this month, a total of six cull dives were conducted specifically to reduce coral predator populations, complemented by additional removals carried out during routine monitoring and maintenance activities across the island. In total, 15 predatory starfish were collected, including four Acanthaster planci (crown-of-thorns starfish) from the House Reef and 11 Culcita schmideliana (cushion starfish), predominantly from the House Reef, with higher concentrations observed around Deep Anemone Rock, Reef Wall, and Noah’s Rock.
In addition to echinoderms, a substantial number of corallivorous gastropods were recorded. A total of 801 predatory snails were removed, 95% Drupella spp. along with some Coralliophila spp., highlighting the continued need for consistent monitoring and removal to mitigate predation pressure and support the recovery and resilience of coral communities.

Coral Bleaching

Bleaching and paling continued throughout April, and by mid-month we were unfortunately observing severe coral bleaching across our shallow restoration sites. In particular, the Blue Hole site showed concerning levels of bleaching. The Blue Hole is an artificially dredged site that receives water flow primarily across the shallow reef crest (<1 m), while the deeper section (3–4 m) experiences very limited flow. As such, the shallow depth and limited water flow at this site makes the corals highly susceptible to heat stress during prolonged periods of elevated sea surface temperature.

To assess coral bleaching across our sites, we adapted the Maldives Coral Bleaching Monitoring Protocol, which assigns a bleaching severity score from 1 to 6 to individual coral colonies. This method is also being implemented across other Reefscapers locations, enabling future cross-site comparison and collaboration. Across four sites and multiple depths, we selected five frames per site. These frames are being monitored at two-week intervals throughout the duration of the bleaching event to track changes in coral health over time and across depth ranges.

During April, we observed significantly higher levels of stress and bleaching on corals located on the shallower side of the Blue Hole, potentially due to increased light intensity and UV exposure at these extremely shallow depths. In response, several frames were relocated to the deeper side of the Blue Hole, with efforts focused on positioning them toward the left-hand side of the site where water flow is greater. A number of frames have been left in the shallow section to allow comparison between the two depth zones. The team will continue to closely monitor stress levels across all frames and adjust their positioning accordingly.

Coral Reproduction Programme

As observed in previous years, April proved to be a highly active month for coral spawning. Our Reefscapers team completed 24 night dives across 14 nights, with spawning documented on five of these nights. In total, we observed 120 colonies spawning across ten different species. This represents a significant increase compared to last year, both in the number of spawning colonies and the diversity of species recorded. The majority of spawning activity was observed in Acropora species. Encouragingly, following observations from last month, we also recorded spawning in Galaxea fascicularis. Continued spawning observations in this species will hopefully allow us to obtain a strong dataset for the first time at Kuda Huraa. Following the April full and new moon spawning events, pigmented eggs continue to be found in various species of Acropora, suggesting that spawning activity is likely to continue during the May full moon period.