Barracuda

Next up on our adventure performing coral restoration in Curacao was more classwork time during our surface interval.  On our previous dive (Part I), we cleaned the Staghorn coral nursery, and on this upcoming dive, we would get to plant small frags on the Coral Restoration Curacao nursery trees!

First, 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.

Here, our instructor is showing us how to wrap the monofilament loop around the coral and cinch it tight. The instructor said they had better success if the corallites were slightly damaged in the process.

A loose loop would only allow the coral to move inside the loop in the current. This friction would continually damage the coral and permit algae to grow.

Crimping the filament tight, crushing a few corallites, would cause the coral to regrow over the filament quickly, before algae could take over.

After our instructor secured the coral with monofilament, she threaded the filament through a hole in the nursery tree. We placed a crimp on top, ready for crimping. This was easy on our nice picnic table in the warm sun. This, in the current, felt nearly impossible.

After our classroom work and lots of practice, we went out for our second dive. We found an “overgrown” Staghorn tree and began selecting pieces to frag.

We began collecting these Staghorn frags to replant on another nursery tree.

Here is our newly renovated tree! This tree was originally a bit sparse, as its largest coral chunks were outplanted onto the reef. Our job was to take our small frags and hang them here. Easier said than done. Remember how we had to use those tiny crimps? Oh yeah, we definitely dropped a few and had to recover them from the silt. 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) in about an hour dive.  It was a lot harder than it looked. 

Here we are in front of our completed tree! It’s a great feeling, knowing that we were able to help with Coral Restoration in Curacao.

Of course, we had to catch some fireworms on the way back.

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.) What a great ending to a great dive!

Join us on Part III of our adventure!