the other Ocean Encounters SCUBA dive

The last dive I did while in Curacao was special.  I was invited to go with the Coral Restoration team on a transplanting dive where coral from trees was to be transplanted to rocks on the ocean floor to start new coral structures where there were none or very little.

That is me on the far left, listening as the team leader was "briefing" us as to procedure prior to beginning our dive.  Yeah man, like I deserved to be there.  But it felt good.  The others were master divers or extremely experienced like Nolo and Monica.  I was just once again planning on coming back happy.

This is a tree in the "coral farm" where baby corals grow into big enough corals to be transplanted to start turning into real coral like you would think of as coral.  I do not know how you make baby coral.  It is up to you to learn that.  This is a family blog after all.  (I swam past this farm on my training dives earlier.)

But now getting into a PG portion of the blog, this is Monica murdering some form of sea life that attacks coral.  She is a famed hunter and killer.  That is her mission and woe to those who interfere.  That is also some adolescent coral.  And we know adolescents require protection despite their feelings of independence.  Monica is busy protecting those corals.  The white tips are new growth.  This is what the above corals grow into after they stop being babies.

And now the erstwhile environmental helper bee;  I have a yellow snorkel, none of the other divers had one.  If I had only known, I probably could have passed as a more veteran diver.  (I did not notice this until I started looking at the pictures).  I was a little excited on the dive.

 Nolo, left , and a man in red, we will call him George, I think it was his name too, preparing the moss covered rock for receiving the baby coral.  Scrape away the moss, hammer the rock somewhat smooth to hold glue to hold the coral.  Me in the background looking at coral and little fish in the coral.

George, me and Nolo all working.  I got to hammer and scrape some too.  Did not get promoted to glue application or coral placing but did do some hammering and general stirring up of moss.

Note hammer in my left hand and my right hand trying to find something to grab.  It is a little difficult to move in water as  one would expect.  I have not mastered it, but working on it and sure did enjoy trying.  

This was by far the most exciting dive of all that I did, even considering swimming with the big dolphins, and Big Herbie.  The time flew by and it was just a great experience.  Many thanks to Nolo and Monica for inviting me and making it possible for me to go on this dive.

The Coral Restoration Foundation is something of Monica's and Nolo's initiative and they have supported their staff to really get involved internationally with this project and coral restoration.  See the web site to see more. https://coralrestorationcuracao.org.

now back to the trip and getting up to date again.