Marriott Team Diaries: January 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 4 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 23 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 16 maintenance snorkels/dives, and inspected all of our coral frames around Vommuli island.
To see the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated St Regis monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.
🪸 Adopt-A-Coral Site – At this site and in the surrounding house reef areas, some adult triggerfish were spotted nesting (which hasn’t been reported before), and we identified some coral colonies presenting triggerfish bite damage, uncommon for our restoration sites.
🪸 Whale Bar Site – frames have shown a great improvement! After last year’s mass mortality (up to 70%), the surviving corals have fully recovered and are growing well. In addition, we were pleased to observe new wild colonies of Acropora hyacinthus along the borders of the house reef.
🪸Dive Centre Site – We are planning to relocate most of the frames from this site due to frequent boat traffic, prioritising both diver safety during maintenance and the structural integrity of the frames. The new site will be AAC, where we aim to establish a designated path leading to all frames. We are also assessing the sand patch near the Dive Centre entrance, which is ~1.5m deep and experiences high erosion. To evaluate its suitability, we will test this location with five small frames to monitor their adaptation.
Three large frames from the Dive Centre have been relocated to the arrival jetty, as a display for guests. This improved visibility of our coral restoration project will be useful during the arrival briefings, and can also serve as a starting point for future guided snorkelling.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of four Evening Talk sessions were held, with 9 guests attending. At the Kids’ Club, we conducted eight sessions featuring activities like “Shark Yoga” and a new session of “Whales and dolphins yoga,” attended by 26 children. Additionally, we built a Kids Club coral frame to mark the Chinese New Year festivities.
We also conducted 2 training sessions for the resort’s new hires, as an introduction to our coral restoration efforts and marine conservation initiatives. Participants learned about the techniques of coral propagation and monitoring, as well as the importance of reducing human impacts on marine environments. By equipping new staff with this knowledge, we encourage greater awareness and engagement in conservation efforts across different resort departments, and promote a collective commitment to protecting our marine ecosystem.
📱 Socials – Our “meet the team” post and coral frame reel clocked up 17K views between them.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – We conducted two Dolphin Cruises and two Turtle Quest excursions, with a total of 17 guests participating. Megafauna sightings included blacktip and whitetip reef sharks, but unusually no sea turtles were spotted around our island this month (except at the nearby reef).
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 13 new coral frames, including a special Sheraton-sponsored frame to commemorate the New Year, dedicated to ‘a sustainable start to 2025!’ In addition, we also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 37 existing coral frames across all our sites, and uploaded the photos to our website for our kind sponsors. We continue to replace any dead corals due to bleaching, adding a total of 1500 new fragments to our recycled 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.
A sustainable start to 2025!
Coral Propagation Sites
January has been a very productive month, with many successful maintenance dives completed. The coral pyramids at the Dive Centre have had a lot of work done, with the newly planted corals doing well.
- Blue Hole & Water Villas – Over the last few weeks, the seasonally shifting sands have been negatively affecting this site. A large section of sand collapsed, which buried some of our frames, necessitating a major lifting project from our team. This site is getting smaller due to the fast sand movement, so we are in the process of relocating the most vulnerable frames.
- Boat Garden – Five scuba dives were completed for our maintenance and monitoring tasks. Frames were lifted, cleaned off and recycled where necessary.
- Dive Centre – Post-bleaching, removal of dead corals has continued on the pyramids, with 6 scuba dives this month. Branching coral is still being removed from the pyramids and moved away from the site. We will continue this work in the coming weeks, and hope to see some positive results from our on-going coral restoration efforts.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – Seven snorkelling excursions were joined this month all which were Snorkelling Safari’s. This month we had an increase in turtle sighting across many sites around the island. Many turtles are being spotted at the sea grass site from land so species cannot always be identified. 15 green turtles and 25 unknown turtle species turtles were seen in January.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Three dolphin cruises were attended in January 2025, with sightings on all cruises.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 56 guests attended 15 marine talks this month, averaging 35 minutes duration
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Five EcoSort challenges were carried out this month. We had a total of 18 guests attend over the month with an average of 4. The average duration was 45 minutes. One event was cancelled due to the Chinese New Year activity calendar. However an extra activity was added on the 8th for the festive calendar.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club Field Trip – We had 34 kids join the marine field trip with an average of 9 people. The average duration was 31 minutes. Increased numbers derived from high occupancy this month and many kids in-house. One activity was cancelled due to the Chinese New Year calendar.
📺 Promotion – Our promotional video has been updated on the tv which is Anchorage poolside and marketing material for Valentine’s day has been put together. In addition, we attended 2 management cocktail events held for guests, to informally chat about our work.
📱 Social Media – Content shared during January included 7 posts, 2 stories and 6 reels. Our top reel reached 14k people and was played 22k times.
Marriott Team Diaries: February 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 7 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 31 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 18 maintenance snorkels/dives, and inspected all of our coral frames around Vommuli island.
To see the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated St Regis monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.
🪸 Adopt-A-Coral Site – Two years since starting this site, we now have 150+ coral frames, including our oldest from back in February 2023. These frames have shown the highest survival rate and best resilience to last year’s coral bleaching event. With relocated frames from the Dive Centre, we are building a guided route to help guests find our restoration site from the lagoon. For the initial batch of 15 frames, relocation was performed both by speedboat and by hand. We aim to complete the relocation of all small frames over the coming weeks, further enhancing visibility and accessibility.
🪸 Arrival Jetty Site – all relocated frames have now successfully established in our new restoration site. No signs of bleaching were observed in the coral colonies. This month, two additional large frames were moved to the site, including one built with a guest.
🪸Dive Centre Site – we observed high macroalgae coverage at this site, requiring extensive maintenance efforts to remove it along with any marine debris. More than half the frames from the channel have now been successfully relocated, mainly along the house reef side.
🎙️ Marine Talks – We held 3 Evening Talks this month, for a total of 6 interested guests. At the Kids’ Club, 8 educational sessions included “Shark Yoga” and “Whales & Dolphins Yoga,” attended by 26 enthusiastic children. We also built a coral frame heart for Valentine’s Day. In addition, 2 training sessions were conducted for the resort’s new starters, introducing them to our coral restoration initiatives and marine conservation work.
In related exciting news, our new dedicated office space is now being constructed! The floor plans are finalised, and construction officially started this month. This will create new marine workspaces for our awareness sessions and coral adoption programs.
📱 Socials – collectively our Instagram post/s and stories reached more than 8K views this month.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – We attended two Dolphin Cruises and one Turtle Quest excursion, enjoyed by 13 participating guests. Megafauna sightings included 2 separate pods of dolphins swimming along our house reef … exciting! Other megafauna species included pygmy devil rays, blacktip and whitetip reef sharks, and our resident sea turtle.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 3 new coral frames, and also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 20 existing coral frames across all our sites, and uploaded the photos to our website for our kind sponsors. We continue to replace any dead corals due to bleaching, adding a total of ~800 new fragments to our recycled 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.
This month’s Coral Rescue & Relocation Project was a massive team effort (see below)
Coral Propagation Sites
Many thanks to Eman, our floating (!) Reefscapers and Coral Planters expert, for assisting Katie with daily maintenance tasks during his three-week from January into February. Plus, we extend our gratitude to the resort for facilitating his visit and being so accommodating.
- Blue Hole & Water Villas – Due to the seasonal shift in ocean currents, fast sand movement continues to impact the Blue Hole entrance. Several frames were quickly buried, but have been lifted and relocated to an area with more rubble. Frames are being remapped on QGIS accordingly. Additional maintenance was carried out at the Water Villas, where several frames were cleared and recycled with new coral fragments.
- Boat Garden – Two scuba dives were conducted for frame maintenance and monitoring.
- Dive Centre – Major maintenance efforts at this site, with 6 separate scuba sessions that included the removal of dead branching coral from the pyramids, along witha general site clean-up.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – 4 snorkelling excursions were joined during February. Megafauna sightings included blacktip reef sharks, turtles, and even a rarely-spotted guitar shark.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Six dolphin cruises were attended this month, and we sighted pods of Spinners on them all.
🎙️ Marine Talks – Eighteen marine talks were attended by 64 guests, with many guests joining multiple sessions. The average talk duration was 39 minutes.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Four EcoSort challenges were held, attracting a total of 30 participants. The average session lasted 34 minutes, and now starts at the new time of 2:30pm.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club Field Trip – 4 marine field trips were hosted, attended by 28 enthusiastic children, each lasting 35 minutes on average.
📺 Promotion – we hosted 1 FAM trip, and attended 2 management cocktail events.
📱 Social Media – on Instagram (and Facebook) we helped with 7 posts, 12 stories, and 4 reels. Top-performing posts reached 10k people although overall engagement was slightly down on the month. Our Reefscapers Instagram account gained +358 new followers, leading to a total of 35,176.
Coral Rescue & Relocation
This month, we have also been very busy with a large-scale coral rescue and relocation project. Our teams transported ~800 mature coral colonies (weighing 5 tonnes) from Fushi Dhiggaaru Faru to Sheraton Maldives as part of the Ras Malé Project (saving corals at risk due to ongoing government land reclamation).
On 19 February, we used a local cargo boat, underwater cages, and floating devices to facilitate the six-hour transportation process. Once back at the resort, corals were unloaded and placed at site via freediving and scuba diving. We have since been securing the coral onto the existing pyramid structures at the Dive Centre. Early monitoring indicates the relocated corals are adapting well, and guests have provided positive feedback about the restoration site.
Special thanks to our Reefscapers team and Sheraton colleagues for making this project a success, and for ‘Mesmerizing Maldives’ who professionally photographed the proceedings (above – click to enlarge).
Marriott Team Diaries: March 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, Hazel, our resident coral biologist, has been on her well-deserved annual vacation … See you next month !
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.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 11 new coral frames (adding ~410 coral fragments to Dive Centre site), plus we also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 58 existing coral frames across all our sites, uploading the photos to our website for our kind sponsors. We continue to remove any corallivorous Drupella snails we encounter, and have been actively replacing dead corals, adding a total of ~850 new fragments to our old recycled 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
We had many guests very interested in our Adopt-a-Coral project, with frame sales generated from excursions, marine talks and the resort website promotion. Next month, we plan to revamp the activity and improve the overall guest experience.
- Boat Garden – The older frames at this site are growing well, but our newer frames need extra maintenance to clear algal buildup on the corals and some sand accretion affecting the lower bars. The fragmented Acropora muricata from the dive centre pyramids is less healthy overall than fragments of Pocillopora verrucosa and A. tenuis.
- Dive Centre – Six scuba dives were completed this month to carry out maintenance here, with most relocated corals attached to our pyramid structures. We have encountered some issues with aggressive, territorial titan triggerfish at this site (noraql behaviour when nesting) which has slowed things down, but these new colonies are adapting very well.
- Gili’s – After some bad weather, we had five frames at this site flip from their original location. We moved the frames back and they were cleaned up as needed. Overall, the frames here continue to do very well.
Research: Coral Spawning in the Maldives
During March, we conducted night dive surveys around the periods of both the Full Moon and New Moon, looking for signs of coral spawning. Despite diving across 11 different nights at our Dive Centre site, we did not observe any signs of spawning this month.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – Ten ‘Snorkelling Safari’ excursions were joined this month. A total of 188 megafauna sightings were mainly dolphins and blacktip reef sharks.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Four dolphin cruises were attended, sighting mainly spinners plus one pod of bottlenose dolphins.
🎙️ Marine Talks – We conducted 18 talks, averaging 41 minutes duration, and attended by a total of 127 guest seats.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – a total of 4 sessions were held, enjoyed by 21 guests over the month. Our new signage has also attracted more people to stop by and engage with our activity.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club Field Trip – March was another busy month at the resort, with many kids in-house. We held 4 marine field trips, attended by 30 enthusiastic children, each lasting 39 minutes on average.
📺 Promotion – we hosted 5 FAM trips, and attended 2 management cocktail events. Our resort colleagues hosted the Marriott Area Team for Asia Pacific excluding China (APEC). We had the privilege to speak with Mr Neeraj Govil, Chief Operations Officer, who planted a coral frame with us last year. I informed him of our coral restoration project’s progress, along with updates of his coral frame.
📱 Social Media – on Instagram (and Facebook) we helped with 7 posts, 13 stories, and 8 reels. Top-performing posts reached 27k people, with overall reach up by 30% to 77k accounts.
Marriott Team Diaries: April 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 4 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 25 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 12 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.
🪸 Adopt-A-Coral Site – This month’s maintenance focused on the relocation of coral frames from the Dive Centre to this site. So far, 30% of the relocation has been completed. The new pathway of relocated frames has also been completed, providing a clear and accessible route for guests to reach the restoration site directly from the shore.
An increase in macroalgae was observed at the beginning of the month, but regular maintenance visits helped reduce this by the end of April. No coral bleaching has been reported at the AAC site, and the colonies appear healthy, despite the seasonally elevated ocean temperatures.
🪸 Arrival Jetty Site – One new large coral frame was added to this site. The existing frames continue to show good health, with minimal macroalgae growth compared to other locations. Mild bleaching was observed only on the newly transplanted frame. In the coming month, we will focus on expanding this site by adding medium-sized frames relocated from the Dive Center.
🪸 Dive Centre Site – Nearly all small coral frames have been relocated to our AAC site. Approximately 80% of the frames from the channel area have also been moved. The remaining channel frames and those on the house reef side will be relocated before the start of a construction project in June. Bleaching was observed on some wild coral colonies surrounding the site towards the end of the month.
🪸 Whale Bar Site – Two small coral frames were relocated here, and all coral colonies at this site are continuing to show healthy growth. During maintenance visits, we remove any drifting marine debris as it can become entangled on the wild reef. In the coming weeks, we plan to continue relocating more small frames here.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of four Marine Talks were held this month, with eight guests participating. At the Kids Club, ten sessions were conducted, with a total of 32 children attending, and featuring “Shark Yoga” and “Whales and Dolphins Yoga”. During the Easter celebrations, an external marine biologist led a special marine-themed event for kids. Additionally, we organized a coral awareness workshop at the Children’s Centre in the local island of Kudahuvadhoo, where 21 children aged 7 to 10 learned about coral reefs and ocean conservation.
Our new office space is still under construction. So far, the ground and first floor structures have been built, and we expect the remaining works to be completed in the coming months.
📱 Socials – Two posts and one story were published on Reefscapers’ social media channels this month. Additionally, we were featured in two interviews conducted by the resort’s Marketing Department.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – In April, three Dolphin Cruises, one Coral Garden, and three Turtle Quest excursions were attended, with a total of 24 guests participating. Additionally, megafauna sightings were recorded during routine maintenance visits across various sites around the island. The most commonly observed species this month were blacktip and whitetip reef sharks.
Additionally, one training session was conducted for our new Resort hire colleagues, providing an introduction to our coral restoration initiatives and marine conservation work.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 17 new coral frames (adding ~725 coral fragments to the reef), plus we also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 63 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 total of ~1780 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
Most of our maintenance was carried out at the dive centre while many frames were lifted and cleaned off of algae. We encountered more algae growth at this site during the first half of the month however this has since reduced. The relocated coral here has been doing great overall and providing donor colonies to the Adopt a Coral project. We have experienced stress on some colonies and we are keeping an eye on these. A total of 84 Drupella snails, two cushion stars and one crown of thorns were removed from the dive centre coral site.
Research: Coral Spawning in the Maldives
Full Moon (13 April 2025): We conducted night diving sessions around this period, to monitor for signs of coral spawningat the Dive Centre. We successfully recorded spawning in a total of 336 coral colonies across a variety of species.
New Moon (27 April 2025): Further monitoring night dives (at the Dive Centre site) recorded 57 colonies of different species actively spawning over this period.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – Four ‘Snorkelling Safari’ excursions were joined this month, although we were focusing our efforts on the coral maintenance and monitoring at our dive centre site. We recorded 93 megafauna sightings, with plentiful blacktip reef sharks and spotted eagle rays. We also had a very exciting and rare sighting of a hammerhead shark, that came into the lagoon chasing a juvenile eagle ray.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – we conducted 10 dolphin cruises during April 2025, where we sighted Spinners, Risso’s dolphins, and Pilot whales.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 24 guests attended 8 different marine talks, averaging 46 minutes duration.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – A total of 20 guests attend over the month, across 4 separate ecosort events.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club Marine Field Trip – April was a busy month due to the Easter school holidays! We hosted four trips, enjoyed by a total of 56 people, receiving great feedback from parents.
📺 Awareness – In collaboration with our Recreation colleagues, we hosted a Guest Community Frame to commemorate Easter week. This was a small coral frame set up at Anchorage Poolside, where guests could participate in Adopt-A-Coral for $20, to plant 4 coral fragments. It was our first time offering this kind of activity and the guests gave very positive feedback. Many thanks to the Recreation team for helping us with this.
In coordination with HR, we hosted some of our resort associate colleagues for coral frame building activities. This was a great opportunity to share information about our Reefscapers coral project to staff. Three small coral frames were built, using 123 coral fragments.
📱 Social Media – Content shared during April included 3 posts, 9 stories and 4 reels, with one post attracting 25k views.
Marriott Team Diaries: May 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 8 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 13 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 7 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.
Coral Frame Relocation & Maintenance
It’s the seasonally hottest part of the year for ocean temperatures, but despite the current coral bleaching alert, no signs of bleaching or paling were observed. Mild paling was recorded at the Whale Bar site, particularly on some branching coral species, but no significant bleaching was seen in surrounding wild colonies.
Minor macroalgae growth was recorded; however, most maintenance efforts focused on unburying frames due to increased sedimentation. A total of 43 coral frames have now been relocated from the Dive Centre and Arrival Jetty sites.
This month, two marketing snorkelling visits were conducted, during which participants explored the newly established coral frame path from the shore to the coral garden, and captured media content for promotional use. In the coming months, we plan to continue extending this path and install a buoy at its starting point to enhance guest accessibility and visibility.
Due to upcoming resort activities scheduled for June–July, the Dive Centre and Arrival Jetty sites will temporarily be without coral frames. The remaining frames from the Dive Centre are planned to be relocated to the Whale Bar site.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of two evening talk sessions were held this month, with four guests participating. At the Kids Club, six sessions were conducted, featuring “Shark Yoga” and “Whales and Dolphins Yoga,” with a total of 13 children attending. We also hosted a Children’s Day celebration with Hulhudheli School, with over 100 students participating in a marine awareness workshop.
📱 Socials – Three reels and one post were published on Reefscapers’ social media channels this month. Additionally, we were featured in two interviews conducted by the resort’s Marketing Department. A special coral adoption activity was also provided for Mr. George Fleck, St. Regis Senior VP and Global Brand Leader.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – In May, one Dolphin Cruise and one Turtle Quest excursion were attended, with a total of eight guests participating. Megafauna sightings this month included both blacktip reef sharks and whitetip reef sharks, along with stingrays, eagle rays, and hawksbill turtles.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 17 new coral frames (adding ~1070 coral fragments to the reef), plus we also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 37 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 total of ~700 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
We continued further maintenance at the Dive Centre this month. Frames on either side of the pyramids were lifted and cleaned of algae and sand. This site is also beginning to expand to the left side towards Eagle Ray Rock as the project has been growing a lot over the last few months.
More frames were moved while scuba diving to the Eagle Rock site (in front of Jetty 101) as there is space and opportunity to develop this small area. We look forward to seeing the progress of these frames in the coming months.
A total of 23 Drupella snails were removed from the dive centre coral site. These were mostly found in the branching coral at the base of the pyramids.
Research: Coral Spawning in the Maldives
Full Moon (12 May 2025): Via loss of gametes, we identified 2 colonies of Acropora that had spawned during this period. Interestingly, they were both split-spawners from April.
Our new research paper was published ! Entitled ‘Synchrony on the reef: how environmental factors shape coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives’. This is a huge achievement for the project as it contributes to further understanding of coral spawning patterns in Maldives. The data was collected across Reefscapers sites, including the Sheraton Maldives, during night dives. We would like to thank all at Reefscapers for making this happen, those at the Sheraton who helped us during research season, and also to the joint-authors of this paper > https://peerj.com/articles/19447/
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – Four Snorkelling Safari Excursions were joined this month across 3 different sites. We recorded 45 megafauna sightings, mainly blacktip reef sharks and spotted eagle rays.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Two dolphin cruises were attended, with Spinner dolphins sighted.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 37 guests attended 9 marine talks this month, with an average duration of 37 minutes. A special talk was also conducted on World Tuna Day.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Four EcoSort challenges were carried out this month, enjoyed by a total of 20 guests.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – We hosted four Marine Field trips for kids club this month. We had 56 people join, and the activity went on for an average of 41 minutes. We had many kids who were very interested in marine life, and we continue to receive very positive feedback.
On 23 May, we commemorated World Turtle Day, working with our Kids Club resort colleagues to carry out turtle shell making and a turtle-themed scavenger hunt. The kids learned all about the sea turtles we have in our waters, along with turtle nesting education
📱 Social Media – Content shared during May included 3 posts, 6 stories and 8 reels. Popular reels included a cowtail stingray swimming through a coral restoration site, which clocked up ~22k views. We gained +366 new followers bringing our total to ~35k.
Synchrony On The Reef
Reefscapers Teams – Our Research Paper
![Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Coral-spawning-patterns-in-Acropora-corals-in-the-Maldives-Sheridan-et-al-2025-1-800x800.jpg "Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]")
![Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Coral-spawning-patterns-in-Acropora-corals-in-the-Maldives-Sheridan-et-al-2025-2-800x800.jpg "Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]")
Cite as:
Sheridan K, Monfared MAA, Dixon SP, Errington AJF, Le Berre T. 2025. Synchrony on the reef: how environmental factors shape coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives. PeerJ 13:e19447 – https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.19447
Over three years, the team at Reefscapers (Kate Sheridan, Margaux Monfared, Simon Dixon, Amelia Errington & Thomas Le Berre) monitored 3,026 colonies across 24 Acropora species in North Malé and Baa Atolls—uncovering the complex environmental cues that drive one of the ocean’s most extraordinary events: mass coral spawning.
As coral conservation increasingly turns to in-situ larval settlement and nature-based interventions, being able to predict when and how corals spawn is more important than ever—especially following the severe bleaching that hit Maldivian reefs during the ongoing fourth global bleaching event.
Key findings:
📈 Temperature: Rising sea surface temperatures don’t predict when spawning starts—but once underway, they do influence how many corals spawn and how synchronized they are.
🌕 Lunar cycles & tides: Most spawning events clustered around the full moon, coinciding with lower tide depths—suggesting that moonlight and tidal forces work together to cue reproduction.
🌧️ Rainfall: Daily precipitation showed surprising correlations with spawning in some species—highlighting the importance of localized strategies.
🧬 Species-specific responses: Even closely related corals reacted differently to the same environmental factors—critical insights for restoration planning.
📚 These findings offer vital guidance for reef managers, restoration practitioners, and policymakers seeking to future-proof coral ecosystems against climate change.
![Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Coral-spawning-patterns-in-Acropora-corals-in-the-Maldives-Sheridan-et-al-2025-3-800x800.jpg "Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]")
![Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Coral-spawning-patterns-in-Acropora-corals-in-the-Maldives-Sheridan-et-al-2025-4-800x800.jpg "Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025]")
New research is shedding light on one of the most spectacular and ecologically vital phenomena in the ocean: the synchronised mass spawning of corals. In a comprehensive study spanning over three years and two Maldivian atolls, scientists have revealed how environmental conditions like temperature, rainfall, and lunar cycles influence the reproductive timing and synchronicity of Acropora corals—a genus critical to reef building and recovery.
Published in PeerJ under the title “Synchrony on the Reef: How Environmental Factors Shape Coral Spawning Patterns in Acropora Corals in the Maldives”, the study is a significant step toward understanding the delicate interplay between environmental cues and coral reproduction—knowledge essential for reef conservation in the face of climate change.
Between October 2021 and May 2024, researchers from Reefscapers (Kate Sheridan, Margaux Monfared, Simon Dixon, Amelia Errington and Thomas Le Berre) monitored spawning events from 3,026 Acropora colonies across 24 species in North Malé and Baa Atolls. Their findings challenge long standing assumptions about the predictability of coral spawning, showing that rises in temperature in the months prior to spawning do not determine the likelihood of spawning to occur in a given month. But rises in sea surface temperatures do significantly influence how many corals spawn in a given month, once the process begins.
“This is a vital insight,” said Kate Sheridan, co-lead author. “It tells us that while warming seas don’t necessarily shift when spawning happens, they do impact how synchronised that spawning is. Not only is synchronicity key to reproductive success, but predicting synchronised mass spawning events will prove vital in conserving critically endangered reefs.”
Across tropical reefs—including those in the Maldives—coral conservation efforts are increasingly turning to in-situ settlement of coral larvae, an approach that enhances natural reproductive processes to boost coral cover and genetic diversity. These interventions depend on accurate predictions of when and how abundantly corals will spawn. Following the ongoing fourth global bleaching event, which has severely affected Maldivian reefs, establishing baseline patterns of coral reproduction has become essential to understanding the impacts of climate change and informing effective mitigation strategies.
The study also uncovered a strong link between lunar phases and spawning behavior, with the majority of corals releasing their gametes on the days closest to the full moon. Interestingly, these peak spawning events were significantly correlated with lower tide depths—suggesting that moonlight and tidal forces might be working in tandem to cue mass reproduction.
Rainfall emerged as another unexpected influencer. Generalized linear models (GLMs) showed a positive relationship between daily precipitation and the proportion of colonies spawning on any given day, although this varied across species. These species-specific differences underscore the complexity of coral reproduction and the need for localized conservation strategies.
Three Acropora species—A. secale, A. tenuis, and A. humilis—were analyzed in greater depth due to their frequent spawning events and number of colonies observed spawning. The models confirmed that environmental influences on spawning behavior are not uniform across species, revealing that even closely related corals may respond differently to the same climatic and oceanographic conditions.
Understanding these nuanced patterns is more than a scientific curiosity—it has real-world implications for reef restoration and climate resilience. Following the ongoing fourth mass global bleaching event, such insights could inform targeted conservation techniques.
“This research highlights the importance of species-specific monitoring and environmental forecasting,” said Margaux Monfared, co-lead author. “If we are to manage and restore coral reefs effectively, especially in vulnerable regions like the Maldives, we need to understand not just when corals spawn—but why they spawn when they do.”
While the study clarifies many aspects of Acropora spawning, it also acknowledges the limits of current knowledge, suggesting that other biological or ecological factors may be at play. Still, by capturing the environmental signatures of coral reproduction at such scale and detail, this research provides a crucial framework for future reef management across the Indo-Pacific.
![Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025] (fig-1-2x)](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Coral-spawning-patterns-in-Acropora-corals-in-the-Maldives-Sheridan-et-al-2025-fig-1-2x.jpg "Coral spawning patterns in Acropora corals in the Maldives - Sheridan et al [2025] (fig-1-2x)")
Marriott Team Diaries: June 2025
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.
Marriott Team Diaries: July 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 3 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 25 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 6 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.
🪸 Dive Centre and Whale Bar Sites – In preparation for the renovation works, we have relocated more than 100 of our Reefscapers coral frames to the refuge Whale Bar area. Sedimentation levels have increased, so we focused efforts on unburying some frames to ensure proper water flow and light availability for the corals. Unfortunately, construction activities also directly damaged some of the frames. Combined with last year’s mass bleaching event, this month’s mechanical damage has resulted in significant losses to these shallow reef zones. This is a major setback for both the natural reef resilience and our coral restoration efforts in the area.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – In July, one Dolphin Cruise and one Turtle Quest excursion were attended, with a total of 10 guests participating. Megafauna sightings were recorded during routine maintenance visits across various sites around the island, but numbers were reduced due to the ongoing renovation works. Sightings this month included eagle rays, blacktip reef sharks, and whitetip reef sharks.
🎙️ Marine Talks – Two evening talk sessions were held, with four guests participating. At the Kids Club, two sessions were conducted, featuring “Shark Yoga” and “Whales and Dolphins Yoga,” with a total of four children attending.
📱 Socials – One video was created for the resort’s Sales and Marketing Department. An interview was also conducted for Porthole Cruise Magazine, which is available online.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 10 new coral frames (adding ~425 coral fragments to the reef), plus we also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 59 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 ~1300 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
Scuba dives continued this month at our Dive Centre site to perform maintenance. Unfortunately, our rope nursery broke, so we rescued the healthy corals from the sand and raised the structure again. We are currently relocating the coral on the rope nursery to another nearby structure.
Many frames at our Water Villas site were repopulated this month. The older repopulated frames are showing good rates of attachment and growth. We are delighted to see this site starting to get back to where it was prior the coral bleaching in 2024. We also continue to re-tag frames which are missing frame numbers.
Six scuba dives were carried out at our Boat Garden site this month. Frames were lifted out of the sand and repopulated if necessary. Across all sites, we always look out for and remove any coral-predators that we spot, that includes around 40 Drupella snails this month.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – this month, we joined 6 Snorkelling Safaris plus 1 Reef Snorkelling trip. We recorded 67 megafauna sightings, mainly blacktip reef sharks and spinner dolphins. Excitingly, we had reports of manta ray sightings around the island, plus increased turtle sightings at the dive centre around our coral frames and pyramids. Additionally, we spotted a pod of 16 dolphins right here in the Sheraton lagoon!
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – this month, we recorded sightings of pods of Spinner dolphins on all six of the dolphin cruises were attended in July.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 68 guests attended marine talks this month over 12 talks, representing a large increase in participation over last month. A special talk was conducted on Shark Awareness Day at Anchorage, followed by a shark-themed trivia night. Starting in July, we have reduced our talks from five to four times a week to accommodate the resorts new activity calendar. However, we have combined our Sea Turtles and Tropical Fish talk together so we are still presenting the same amount of information for guests.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Four challenges this month, for a total of 6 guests.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – We hosted four Marine Field trips for kids club, attended by 19 people in total, averaging 33 minutes.
📱 Social Media – Content shared during July included 1 post, 4 stories and 1 reel. The post with the greatest reach was one of our job vacancies, with 31k views.
👋 Team Updates – After saying a fond farewell to Katie last month, who left to work with our Reefscapers colleagues at Four Seasons Kuda Huraa, we are delighted to welcome our new Assistant Marine Biologist this month, Cailin. Thank you to everyone at Reefscapers and Sheraton for welcoming her over the last three weeks; she is a great addition to the team and we look forward to sharing many marine adventures together!
Marriott Team Diaries: August 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 4 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 25 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 12 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.
🪸 Maintenance & Monitoring
This month, we were visited by Reefscapers cofounder Thomas Le Berre, for professional consultation and hands-on assistance with our coral restoration work. He assessed the state of the reef, damaged last month by mechanical construction equipment. We surveyed the broken coral colonies at the Dive Centre site, as well as our damaged coral frames at the Whale Bar. One area near the overwater villas was identified as a potential new restoration site. Encouragingly, many small coral recruits were found growing there following last year’s global coral bleaching event, making it an ideal location for adding new frames. In the coming months, we will establish this new restoration site and enhance coral cover in the whole area.
As construction activities continue, wild coral colonies and frames are being relocated to safeguard them from damage. This month, 30 wild colonies were moved from the Beach Villas ahead of the wave-breaker construction. In addition, the coral frames originally located in front of Alba Beach were relocated closer to the Whale Bar site before sand pumping operations began.
🪸 Adopt-A-Coral Site
Our AAC site is located away from construction activities, and has continued to show positive coral growth. Mild macroalgae growth was found at the beginning of the month, but it was successfully removed during our maintenance work and did not persist. All newly built coral frames have been placed at this site. Looking ahead to next month, construction is expected to begin close to the AAC site. Frames located closer to the wave-breakers will be relocated to safer positions. Additionally, new marking buoys will be installed to clearly delineate boundaries and ensure that barges and construction machinery remain outside the designated limits of the site.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of two Evening Talk sessions were held this month, with six guests participating. At the Kids Club, one session was conducted featuring Shark Yoga, with a total of 5 children attending.
📱 Socials – Two guided snorkelling trips were held for our new resort colleagues in Sales and F&B departments. Three reels were posted this month on Reefscapers’ social media, reaching 53+K views so far.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – In August, two Dolphin Cruises and two coral garden excursions were attended, with a total of 16 guests participating. Megafauna sightings were recorded during routine maintenance visits around the island, including several sightings of our resident hawksbill sea turtle.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 12 new coral frames (adding ~540 coral fragments to the reef), plus we also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 48 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 ~1175 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, coral frames on both sides of the pyramids were lifted and cleaned of algae. There was extra build-up of algae by mid-August which resulted in the frames needing a lot of maintenance. Additionally, we began a sixth line of coral frames on the left side of the pyramids to expand the coral garden.
We continue to repopulate frames at the Water Villas & Blue Hole sites; the completed frames are showing excellent rates of attachment and growth. We are re-tagging any frames that we encounter without ID numbers, via scheduled SCUBA dives where necessary, to lift and manoeuvre the frames.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – We joined six Snorkelling Safaris and one Reef Snorkelling trip this month, plus an additional five guided guest snorkels were requested. Megafauna sightings included a blacktip reef shark and spotted eagle rays, along with the guest-sighting of a large lemon shark swimming at our Blue Hole coral site.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – We attended seven dolphin cruises, and sighted Spinner dolphins on each trip.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 61 guests attended 11 marine presentations, averaging 36 minutes duration. On 30 August, we celebrated International Whale Shark Day with an afternoon craft session where we invited guests to paint their own whale sharks. This was followed by an educational marine talk at Anchorage Bar and an interactive trivia night with the help from our Recreation team colleagues.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Four EcoSort activities this month, enjoyed by a total of 17 guests.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – We hosted four Marine Field trips for 22 people from kids club, averaging 30 minutes duration.
📱 Social Media – Content shared during August included 4 posts, 18 stories and 4 reels. The post with the most engagement featured 2 years of coral restoration, clocking up 30k views. Overall, we reached 51k accounts while our followers continue to hover around the 35k mark.
Marriott Team Diaries: September 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 13 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. A total of 16 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 10 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.
🪸 Maintenance & Monitoring
This month, we’ve reached an important milestone: our 300th coral frame! This particular frame was built for a UK media event, where, in addition to having the coral adoption experience, we also did a snorkelling trip visit for the guests to the Adopt-a-Coral restoration site.
Another milestone: we have started to harvest coral fragments from our coral frames for the very first time! Our oldest frames are now almost three years old, so we have started collecting fragments from these mature coral colonies. This marks an important step forward, as it allows us to source coral fragments more easily while also providing stronger, more resilient colonies to continue our restoration efforts.
We have been busy relocating a total of 21 coral frames from the east side of the Whale Bar site, to avoid possible sediment plumes from the planned coastal protection work. Protective buoys have been fixed to demarcate our coral restoration areas.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – we attended a Dolphin Cruise and a Turtle excursion, enjoyed by 11 guests. Megafauna sightings included eagle rays, hawksbill turtles, whitetip reef sharks and blacktip reef sharks. Interestingly, we have recently started spotting octopuses at our coral restoration sites.
📱 Socials – Two reels were created and posted this month for the Reefscapers social media with so far 53.5K views.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 22 new coral frames (adding ~900 coral fragments to the reef), and ending the month by planting frame number SH844. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 102 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 ~1200 new fragments to our existing frames. We continue to spot any corallivorous species, removing 76 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, we have created a seventh line of coral frames to the left side of the pyramids. Many scuba dives were conducted for coral frame monitoring and pyramid maintenance. We also marked International Coastal Cleanup Day on 20 September with a scuba cleanup. We have been continuing our observations on the coral relocated in February – they are healthy, showing good rates of attachment and growth.
We have completed our frame re-tagging at the Blue Hole site, and relocated some frames further inside the hole to avoid shifting sands on the seabed. Frames in the first line at the Water Villas site (established before 2024’s bleaching event) take a lot of time to clean and maintain.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – Six snorkelling excursions were joined this month, comprising five Snorkelling Safaris and one Reef Snorkel. We also hosted five FAM trips who all planted coral frames, and some had guided snorkelling to the coral restoration site. Two additional guided guest snorkels were carried out on request at the Dive Centre.
Megafauna sightings included blacktip reef sharks, spotted eagle rays, and bottlenose dolphins.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – Eight dolphin cruises were attended during September, and we successfully sighted Spinner dolphins on every cruise.
🎙️ Marine Talks – we held talks for 6 audiences this month, followed by interesting and engaging Q&As.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – Four challenges were carried out this month.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – We hosted four Marine Field trips for kids’ club, for a total of 6 people, each averaging around 30 minutes duration.
📱 Social Media – during September we shared 3 posts, 23 stories, and 6 reels. Our top performer with 19k views featured our latest scientific research publication.
🧹 Housekeeping Week was marked on 17 September with our resort colleagues by planting 82 corals! We were delighted to work with the whole housekeeping team (photo below), who were interested to learn about our coral project and help expand our coral garden.
🪸 Lysterra Annual Company Meeting
We hosted Lysterra on their Annual Company Meeting on 25 September. This was a full-day event attended by 124 people, featuring Reefscapers coral restoration activities. We kicked things off with an educational presentation about coral reefs, followed by a hands-on coral transplanting session for everyone, and a guided snorkel to our Dive Centre coral site.
Overall, we planted 12 new coral frames planted, adding ~500 coral fragments to the reef. A big THANK YOU to the combined teamwork and support from all our resort colleagues. We were also ably assisted by Reefscapers directors, Thomas and Marie, along with Kuda Huraa interns, Sydney and James. Thank you everyone for all your help in organising and implementing this fun event!
Marriott Team Diaries: October 2025
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.
Marriott Team Diaries: November 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 6 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. Multiple 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 🙏. We conducted 6 maintenance snorkels/dives, focusing on repairing our coral frames at the Whale Bar and Adopt-a-Coral sites.
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.
🪸 Coral Maintenance & Monitoring
We continue to expand the line of small coral frames that guide guests from the shoreline to our restoration sites, enhancing both accessibility and the overall guest experience.
Following the strong currents in October and the significant impact on the Whale Bar site, this month’s efforts focused on salvaging broken coral fragments and reattaching them to their original frames. Most of the damaged colonies belonged to Acropora muricata and A. digitifera. By the end of the month, approximately 70% of the broken fragments had been successfully reattached. Additional viable fragments were also used to populate the new coral frames constructed this month. Our Whale Bar area remains vulnerable, and we plan to relocate frames into the lagoon for greater long-term resilience.
At the Adopt-a-Coral site, a mild increase in sedimentation was observed, resulting in several small frames becoming partially buried at the beginning of the month. Maintenance efforts here focused primarily on removing any marine debris, establishing the new coral-frame path, and clearing macroalgae from the frames to ensure healthy growth conditions.
Coral Spawning
This spawning season marked one of the most important moments in our restoration project so far: for the very first time, our coral frames spawned! We were delighted and excited to witness spawning from our very first St Regis frame, namely SR0001 !
We successfully observed our propagated colonies of Acropora digitifera release their gametes into the water column, confirming that the corals we have been nurturing for the past 2.8 years have now reached full reproductive maturity. This milestone highlights not only the resilience and sustained growth of the corals, but also confirms the importance and success of our long-term restoration efforts. With these corals now capable of spawning naturally, there is real potential for new colonies to settle and establish themselves on our house reef and neighbouring reefs, contributing to a healthier and more resilient ecosystem.
Marine Education & Awareness
📱 Socials – During this month we created 3 reels for the Reefscapers social media account, clocking up 44k views and 2k likes.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – we attended two Dolphin Cruises and two coral gardens excursions, enjoyed by a total of 22 guests. The most common sightings were blacktip reef shark and eagle rays, along with our new octopus residents at the Whale Bar site.
Staff – At the beginning of the month, we made a brief visit to the Sheraton Resort, where we had the opportunity to meet with the team and enjoy a Reefscapers Marriott team reunion. We also welcomed Phebe as our new Marine Biology intern, and her contributions have already been invaluable. She has actively participated in coral frame building, site maintenance, and snorkelling excursions, and has successfully completed her BASE training. We are excited to have her on the team and look forward to her continued involvement in the project.
🪸 St Regis Maldives Relaunch: Marine Activities
From 8 to 11 November, The St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort held its relaunch event, showcasing the newly renovated areas completed throughout the year. The celebration brought together the resort’s owners, representatives from Marriott International, VIP sales agents, and various media partners.
Reefscapers hosted the participants in three main activities:
1) Adopt-A-Coral Experience – guests participated in our coral frame adoption. We attached coral fragments to a new frame, and discussed our marine conservation work and the vision behind our Reefscapers coral restoration program. We also delivered a short talk, highlighting key milestones achieved to date, including surpassing 300 coral frames planted around the island and reaching an important benchmark: our oldest frame has now grown large and healthy enough to serve as a donor colony for new coral frames. This moment represents a full restoration cycle and showcases the long-term success of the project.
2) Art Exhibition – in collaboration with Maaenboodhoo School, we hosted an art exhibition during the event, showcasing creative pieces made by local students aged 6 to 13. These artworks were created using only marine debris and recyclable materials, as students portrayed their vision of the importance of the ocean. The winning students will be awarded a day visit to the resort, including a hands-on “Build a Coral Frame” experience – we look forward to welcoming them soon!
3) Guided Snorkelling – guests joined a guided snorkelling tour of our coral restoration site. During the visit, we presented the newly established coral-frame path, the iconic “Adopt-a-Coral” sign, and several significant frames, including our very first coral frame number 100. We then continued the snorkel tour by exploring the marine biodiversity of our island house reef.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 12 new coral frames (adding ~490 coral fragments to the reef), and ending the month by planting frame number SH872. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) an impressive total of 149 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 ~1700 new fragments to our existing frames. We continue to spot any corallivorous species, removing 50 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
The coral garden at the dive centre has been expanding to the left side of the pyramids as we plant more frames. Maintenance dives were completed here with emphasis on the pyramids as we continue to repopulate as many as possible. Coral frame repopulation continues at the water villas site which has come a long way this year. Additionally, we are working on retagging the frames in the blue hole so repopulation can start in the New Year.
Coral Spawning
Full Moon (5 November): We conducted night diving sessions around this period, to look for evidence of coral spawning. Our team successfully confirmed spawning in 87 different coral colonies, across 4 different Acropora species.
New Moon (20 November): During night dives around this period, we recorded spawning in 4 different colonies of the same species of Acropora (part of the relocation in February 2025).
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – 12 Snorkelling Safari excursions were joined this month, across various local sites in the region. An additional three guided guest snorkels were carried out on request at the dive centre. We recorded 162 megafauna sightings around Furanafushi, mostly blacktip reef sharks, spinner dolphins, and spotted eagle rays.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – 8 dolphin cruises were attended this month, and we successfully sighted Spinner dolphins on most cruises; pilot whales were seen on one cruise. In exciting separate encounters, we saw pods of spinner dolphins and bottlenose dolphins right here in our lagoon! They could be seen from the resort jetty, where guests enjoyed watching the dolphins jumping and spinning into the air… quite a show!
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 27 guests attended marine talks this month over eight sessions, averaging 37 minutes. We are working on a new educational booklet to share with our Adopt-A-Coral guests, to provide more information and visual cues of our coral gardens and the various coral species.
![Reefscapers at Sheraton Maldives [SH 2025.11] frames DC [800]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Reefscapers-at-Sheraton-Maldives-SH-2025.11-frames-DC-800.jpg)
![Reefscapers at Sheraton Maldives [SH 2025.11] Gili maintenance [800]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Reefscapers-at-Sheraton-Maldives-SH-2025.11-Gili-maintenance-800.jpg)
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – 4 challenges were carried out this month, averaging 30 minutes duration.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – we hosted four Marine Field trips for kids’ club. We are working on a new activity ‘Junior Marine Biologist’ which we hope to launch soon.
📱 Instagram – this month we shared 3 posts, 35 stories and 8 reels to Instagram. The best performing post was about coral spawning, which clocked up 23k+ views.
![Reefscapers Team rashguards at Sheraton [800]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Reefscapers-Team-rashguards-at-Sheraton-800.jpg)
![Reefscapers at Sheraton Maldives [SH 2025.11] dolphins Spinners underwater lagoon [800]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Reefscapers-at-Sheraton-Maldives-SH-2025.11-dolphins-Spinners-underwater-lagoon-800.jpg)
![Reefscapers at Sheraton Maldives [SH 2025.11] [800]](https://reefscapers.com/reefscapers.com/main/seamain/uploads/Reefscapers-at-Sheraton-Maldives-SH-2025.11-800.jpg)
Marriott Team Diaries: December 2025
St. Regis Vommuli
This month, we created 5 new coral frames of various sizes, kindly sponsored by guests, the resort, and online. We conducted 9 maintenance snorkels/dives, focusing on repairing our coral frames at the Whale Bar site. Our 6-monthly 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.
🪸 Coral Maintenance & Monitoring
Festive Season at the St Regis Maldives
In addition to supporting the festive season activities with the Kids Club, we hosted a coral-adoption experience during the Tree Lighting event. Guests built a coral frame in the shape of a Christmas tree, with 17 participants planting coral fragments while learning about the resort’s sustainability and reef-restoration programme.
With ocean currents changing directions with the monsoon season, and also increasing in intensity, some of our frames are vulnerable. To mitigate this, we are planning to relocate some small-sized frames to expand our coral frame path from the beach to the ‘Adopt a Coral’ sign. Other planned maintenance work includes the removal of macroalgae growing on our frames and lifting any frames that have become buried under sediment.
New recruits of table-forming corals have increased along the house reef, with more than 50 juveniles recorded at the Whale Bar site. This is a particularly encouraging sign following the severe loss of adult table corals during the 2024 mass-bleaching event.
To enhance guest experience upon arrival and bring further attention to the sustainable nature of the St Regis Vommuli, special frames that spell out ‘ST REGIS’ have been installed outside the guest viewing area of the arrival jetty.
Marine Education & Awareness
📱 Socials – A total of 10 posts were published this month, including Phebe’s “Meet the Team” and “Day in the Life” features. We also launched our festive-season “Fishmas” series, highlighting our work and the marine biodiversity of our island. These posts clocked up almost 60k views and 1.3k likes.
🤿 Marine Biology Excursions – Two Dolphin Cruises and one turtle quest excursion were attended, in addition to a scuba diving excursion, with a total of 16 guests participating. The most common megafauna sightings were blacktip reef sharks and eagle rays, along with whitetips and hawksbills.
Sheraton Full Moon
This month, we built 15 new coral frames (adding ~650 coral fragments to the reef), and ending the month by planting frame number SH887. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) an impressive total of 169 (up 20!) 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 ~1725 new fragments to our existing frames. We continue to spot any corallivorous species, removing 78 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.
🗓️ 2025 Highlights
– 158 new coral frames were built, adding ~7,100 coral fragments to the reef, plus ~15,800 fragments during maintenance work.
– 1,055 frames were monitored, with huge maintenance efforts at the water villas site following 2024’s global coral bleaching event.
– we relaunched our 6-month internship programme for marine graduates looking for experience in coral science. In October, we welcomed recent UK graduate, Harry, who proved to be a great addition to the team.
Coral Propagation Sites
Blue Hole & Water Villas – The Water Villas site has nearly completed repopulation however some maintenance was slowed down due to titan triggerfish nesting. Repopulation at the Blue Hole also started properly this month. We will continue to work on this site heavily in the new year as we work towards getting this site maintained.
Boat Garden – Frames at this site are showing great progress and we are very happy with their growth. We still encounter some sponge growth on frames however this was reduced throughout the year. We worked hard to get to this site more this month to catch up on monitoring.
Dive Centre & Eagle Ray Rock – Another line of coral frames was started on the left side of the pyramids towards Eagle Ray Rock. Frames on both sides of the pyramids were lifted and maintained. The frames at Eagle Ray Rock are also growing at a fast rate. Similar to the Boat Garden, this site used to have much more red sponge however this has also reduced which we noticed this month. We will try plant more frames here in the new year.
Gilis – This site has progressed greatly this year, the corals are growing very well here as usual. With the help from FS Kuda Huraa we have got new frame tags for this site. This will streamline our monitoring process in the future. We had to rearrange this site once this year due to strong weather conditions which flipped many frames.
Coral Spawning
Full Moon (4 December): We conducted night diving sessions around this period, to look for evidence of coral spawning at the Dive Centre. We successfully recorded spawning in 58 colonies representing a variety of Acropora species.
New Moon (20 December): While night diving at the Dive Centre, we soon became confident that all the gravid coral colonies with eggs had already completed their spawning over earlier Full Moon period.
Marine Education & Awareness Activities
♻️ EcoSort Challenge – 3 challenges were carried out this month, averaging 30 minutes duration.
👨👩👧👦 Kids Club – we hosted 26 children for our Kids’ Club marine activities during the festive period. On 23 December, we hosted a hugely popular “Marine Life Ornament” crafting session, enjoyed by 35 guests young and old, who painted their own wooden marine animal to take home. [Many thanks to our colleagues in Engineering who carved out these ornaments!]
📱 Instagram – this month we shared 7 posts, 14 reels, and 20 stories. Our St Regis internship post was our top performer, totalling 17,000+ views.
Marine Life
🤿 Snorkelling Excursions – a total of 11 snorkelling safaris were joined this month, along with 40 guest snorkels and six associate snorkels.
🐬 Dolphin Cruises – 8 dolphin cruises were attended this month, and we successfully sighted Spinner dolphins on all trips.
🎙️ Marine Talks – A total of 35 guests attended marine talks this month over 7 sessions, averaging 43 minutes. On 30 December, we hosted a new “Our Pledge to the Ocean” activity, encouraging guests to write their personal pledge to the ocean as we enter 2026. Overall, our festive activities were successful and we received great feedback from the guests.
