Marriott Team Diaries: January 2024

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

This month, through a combination of snorkelling and diving, we have been working around the island across all of our coral propagation and reef restoration sites, photographing and maintaining our coral frames.

• At the Blue Hole site, 2 coral frames (comprising mostly of Acropora muricata) were significantly buried in the sand. Through scuba diving and the use of our bespoke pulley device, both frames were successfully raised out of the sand and relocated to a new site.
• Spa Bridge – some of our earliest flat frames, originally transplanted in 2020, needed significant maintenance work due to high mortality of Pocillopora verrucosa. We have observed similar results with this species at other islands after 3-years of growth, but we are unsure as to the exact cause of this phenomenon. All dead colonies were removed and replaced with new fragments.
• Water Villas – frames are healthy and thriving, displaying a fast rate of growth even within their first year of transplantation.
• Gili’s Falhu – frames are doing well and require little maintenance work and recycling.
• Coral Pyramids – we were busy on maintenance dives, clearing space and managing competition. Due to the fast growth rate, the corals are overcrowding in some areas so require ‘thinning out’, so we separate crowded colonies and retransplant them to fill any dead areas. As we go along, we remove any corallivorous species such as Crown of Thorns (COTs) and Drupella snails, to prevent any outbreaks.

Marine Biology

A total of 45 guests enjoyed our guided ‘Maldivian Snorkelling Journey’ activities, and our marine talks were very engaging, lasting upwards of one hour and generating great feedback. Several sightings of giant trevally were recorded this month, and sightings of blacktip reef shark were noticeably high, with several large individuals and pregnant sharks recorded.