Bali Diving Healthy Coral Reef

Healthy Coral Reef

Was diving in Bali yesterday on a great dive site called Coral gardens and I spent a real long time looking intently at the corals no I wasn't high I was just looking to see how they grow specifically how does a new coral get started.

As a diver  the idea of creating more corals than you impact is something that I would like to strive to achieve.as a goal.  In Cambodia we tried to do some reef projects but the locals and the goverment were not very supportive mostly becuase of ignorance.

One of the the things that I noticed was that the coral was being smothered by the sand that was getting kicked up.  This site is very close to a area of high diver concentrations and there are a lot of new divers kicking up a lot of sand at the Liberty Wreck in Tulamben.

If you cleaned that sand off how much coral could you save from being negatively impacted?  I wonder if you brought a little nozzle for a LP hose and blew it off gently,  could you have a real impact on the health of the reef in the long term?

I also noticed that the coral was breaking off, I suspect from divers but maybe a natural occurrence as well when the big waves comes it moves a lot of water. Anyway in Thailand they have a project where they are taking corals and transplanting them into concrete and then placing in the sand. As I understand it that project is working to start new coral colonies.

 I wonder if you took that and anchored it in a big rock that would be above sand level and if you planted it in deeper water say 10 meters how likely would it be to survive and thrive?  and I wonder if you placed other rocks in the area that were ready for the corals to colonize could you get a chain reaction going?

The table and apcora corals all seem to have really healthy little nursuries going and the amount of coral there is less that a meter accross.  Something to think about!

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