Four Seasons Team Diaries: July 2026

At Landaa this month, we transplanted 35 new coral frames, kindly sponsored by guests (12), the Resort (22), and online (1), adding 1587 new coral fragments to the reef. We also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 145 coral frames, mainly at the Dive Site.

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.

Education & Awareness

You can read about our team’s Summer Camp for Resort guests, and internship programme for local students over on Marine Savers.

At Kuda Huraa this month, our coral experts transplanted 11 new frames, and monitored and repopulated 111 growing coral frames, across all our coral restoration sites around the island.

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.

Coral Reef Maintenance

This month, maintenance and monitoring were carried out at all four restoration sites. Efforts were concentrated on The Blue Hole and House Reef sites. Early July brought stormy weather to the Maldives, with rough seas and powerful currents that displaced several coral frames at both the Pyramids and Noah’s Rock sites on House Reef. The team successfully recovered, repositioned, and secured all affected frames and artificial structures. Night diving for coral spawning continued, however no spawning was observed.

Blue Hole – many of the frames at this site were scheduled for their 6-monthly monitoring photos and maintenance, with some colonies continuing to show signs of heat stress. But we also observed that both Acropora muricata and Pocillopora verrucosa continue to thrive here, with many colonies showing healthy growth rates. It is encouraging to see the resilience of certain coral colonies despite ongoing environmental pressures. As sea temperatures returned to normal this month, the temporary shade structures were removed from our restoration frames.

House Reef – At the beginning of July, strong SW monsoon conditions brought rough seas, heavy rainfall, and powerful currents that affected several of our House Reef restoration sites. The Pyramids site experienced significant disturbance, with some of our large bespoke coral structures being displaced by the currents, including the Christmas Tree and Disco Ball frames. We successfully recovered, repositioned, and secured these structures in more stable locations.  Unfortunately, a large number of frames at Noah’s Rock were displaced from their original positions on the rocks, with several falling onto neighbouring frames and resulting in substantial coral breakage. While the extent of the damage was disheartening to see, some of the broken coral fragments were still viable and were salvaged. These fragments are now being used to construct and populate new restoration frames, allowing us to recover and repurpose the damaged coral as part of the ongoing restoration efforts.

Maw’s Rock – frames at this site were scheduled for their 6-monthly monitoring cycle. Overall, several coral frames are in good condition, but predation by  corallivorous snails (Drupella and Coralliophila) was affecting Acropora tenuis and A. muricata. All snails were removed during maintenance to reduce further tissue loss. Overgrowth by sponges continues to be a challenge, with numerous coral colonies experiencing sponge and algal growth. Routine cleaning and maintenance were carried out on affected frames and algae were removed where possible. Sponges are able to regenerate from small fragments, so managing overgrowth remains particularly challenging.

Coral Predators

Coral predator management during July included one targeted cull dive, with additional removals carried out alongside routine monitoring and maintenance activities at restoration sites around the island. A total of four predatory starfish were removed, consisting of two crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) from the Channel and Water Villas, and two cushion stars (Culcita schmideliana) from Noah’s Rock and Deep Anemone Rock. Gastropod abundance was notably higher this month, with 862 predatory snails collected across our sites (comprising 852 Drupella spp. and 10 Coralliophilia violacea).

Coral Reproduction Programme

As part of our ongoing research into coral spawning of previously undocumented species at Kuda Huraa, we have extended our usual coral spawning monitoring season (October–January and March–May) and continued conducting night dives into July. This month, rough weather conditions and a jellyfish bloom prevented night dives on several occasions. Despite these challenges, the team was able to conduct five night dives across the new and full moon periods, but sadly no coral spawning was observed.