ReefdUp August 31, 2019 Share August 31, 2019 For our 10 year anniversary, my husband and I decided to revisit our honeymoon location: Curacao. It was also where we got our PADI Open Water scuba certification and tried to catch the coral spawnings (with no luck). So of course, this time around, we couldn't sit still and just enjoy the island. We had to get involved!! My husband totally embraces my obsession with rehabilitating corals, so when he came across the PADI Coral Restoration certification offered by the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF) Curacao, he signed both of us up! My favorite dive of all time was working with Project Aware to clean up a small fishing island off the coast of Honduras, so this seemed to fit right in. The certification class requires classwork, three dives, and an exam (which wasn't difficult... I thought I was just joking around that the first question would be "what is a coral..." Whoops.) The class started off with our instructor, Vivianna, going over coral anatomy, coral pests, and the mission of CRF. I felt so bad for the instructors because we asked a million questions and derailed all of the training! Model of a coral colony Internal model Then, we went on our first dive. We toured the CRF Nursery and Outplant areas to get a feel of the area. During our tour, our instructor pointed out the growth of various "frags" over time, pests, diseases, and other things we learned during class. Elkhorn outplants Fireworm Damage Diseased coral Next, we went to the Nursery. We were assigned a tree to clean. Our task was to use steel wool pads and scotch-brite pads to remove all the algae and fire coral from the tree. That's it. Ok, I really had no idea how hard that was going to be. Two people scrubbing a suspended tree, in some fairly strong surge, around critically endangered coral...and oh by the way...scrubbing fire coral just means the nematocysts just get suspended in the water all around you. That pretty much took up our entire dive...one tree cleaning...and there were LOTS of trees. And needless to say, FIRE CORAL HURTS!!!! Staghorn nursery Getting some technique pointers Yours truly Our tree is all "clean"... And on our way back, we were greeted by this lovely barracuda! More to come in another post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReefdUp August 31, 2019 Author Share August 31, 2019 Next up was more classwork time. We had to learn how to make the monofilament rigs to hold the corals and how to frag the corals. We had to get the "frags," secure the coral in the filament, thread the filament through the tree branch pipe, thread on a crimp (yeah, try not dropping those in the surge), and then crimp it secure. Yeah, have fun crimping these underwater in the surge... Once again, silly me, I thought this would be easy out on the dive. I only managed to hang a whopping nine corals on our tree (my husband had about the same amount). It was a lot harder than it looked. Our "frags" to rehang Our newly renovated tree! We did it! Us in front of our tree. I forgot to get a photo of their fireworm exterminator, but here is our instructor catching a fireworm. The barracuda greeted us on the way back again (sorry for all the silt in the photo.) (This is a cleaning station - it's not barring its teeth at us or anything.) More to come! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReefdUp August 31, 2019 Author Share August 31, 2019 Finally, we had our last classwork session. This time we had to take the larger "frags" and outplant them onto the reefs. We practiced with dead coral and a demo bench. The instructor went through the different design iterations they had used. I found it very interesting that their latest design utilizes vertical rebar and dual-horizontal bamboo poles. The corals are then zip-tied twice (once to each bamboo pole) for stability. On our last dive, we were able to outplant about 20 colonies. Again, this was hard (especially when I accidentally slammed my ankle into some fire coral). Choosing what chunks to outplant... Filling up the milk crates with coral colonies... Me with my haul... Our outplant section... My responsibility... Now to just trim those zip ties! Me with our outplant! Will with our outplant! Overall, it was an amazing time. It was rough work, but it was extremely rewarding. We hung about 20 corals back on the tree, and we outplanted about 20 colonies. As far as how it related back to my coral rehab, it was jaw-dropping to see restoration work on such a large scale. The growth rates were just unparalleled, and their concerns were much *much* bigger. It gave me a ton of perspective on how devastating storms, ocean acidification, diseases, and other pests we don't see in the hobby can all be. Stay tuned...there might be more... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheresTheReef September 1, 2019 Share September 1, 2019 This is awesome. Great work and thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReefdUp September 5, 2019 Author Share September 5, 2019 On 9/1/2019 at 8:57 AM, WheresTheReef said: This is awesome. Great work and thanks for sharing. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest September 16, 2019 Share September 16, 2019 On 9/4/2019 at 9:15 PM, ReefdUp said: Thanks! What an amazing experience! I was just looking at a similar experience in the Florida Keys. Great to hear how involved it is and how much help you did! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReefdUp September 16, 2019 Author Share September 16, 2019 4 hours ago, TrueTricia said: What an amazing experience! I was just looking at a similar experience in the Florida Keys. Great to hear how involved it is and how much help you did! Thanks! I would love to see the Keys version! I've heard it is quite a large operation. If you go, please share!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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