Stocking the Nursery

Now that the students have enough buoyancy control, we are able to begin the reef conservation work.  Today was spent at the nursery and artificial reef site at Phi Phi Ley.  We had a preliminary dive to look at the coral fragments that had been planted into dead reefs by previous classes and were amazed not only at the survival, but also the amount of growth.  We also swam past the nursery platforms where we will place the racks of new fragments that we will prepare.  Those fragments will grow for a year and next year's class will plant them.  If there's a learning experience more fun than this, I want to know about it.

Here is Lu taking her "giant stride" into the drink.

Sydney swimming past the racks that last year's class prepared.  We will plant those fragments into a dead reef in two days.

Fragments planted by our class last year.

Another fragment planted last year. 

These can hardly be called fragments any longer.  They were planted by our class three years ago.

Andrew, the team of dive instructors, and I did an 85 minute dive to collect fragments.  During this time the students were to be getting everything ready on the boat so we can quickly prepare the racks with new fragments.

Lu and Taylor enjoying lunch after preparing the boat for the coral fragments. Today was a bit cool- only 85 degrees.  We prefer 88.

Hli, Kaylee, and Taylor just learned how cold it is in Missouri.  We split the group into four teams... the same buddy teams for diving. Each team got fragments from different donor coral colonies.

They were to insert the fragments into plastic tubes and push the tubes into a rack with plastic mesh.

Each rack holds 60 fragments on a 10 x 6 grid.

It works best if someone on one side of the rack pushes and someone on the other pulls the tube into place... all the while keeping the coral fragments wet with seawater.

When a rack was finished, we hung it over the side to keep the corals viable.

Now it's time to gear up and take the racks to the nursery platforms.

Brandon.

Zoe.

Everyone has a rack and will swim it down to the nursery.

Sydney.

Elliott.

Zoe.

Sarah.

Emily.

Kaylee.

Hli.

Brandon.

After the racks were positioned, Facu (instructor), Dani (videographer), and I cable tied the racks together and to the platform.

Isn't it beautiful?  The closest three racks will come off in two days since they've been there for a year.

M - I - Z !