Coral Restoration Dive

Join Coral Restoration Foundation and Island Ventures on a Coral Restoration Dive!

Coral has been in decline on the Key Largo reef for many years due to many factors that include global warming and tourism.  A normal reef would expect to be covered in hard and soft corals to around 40%.  In Key Largo we are down to 2 or 3% cover and desperately need help in replanting.

CRF have worked hard for many years replanting corals out on the reef and there are many places on the reef where you can witness this.

Have you ever thought about helping to save the coral reefs by planting coral?

Join us for a Coral Restoration dive to the CRF nursery and after planting coral on a reef!

These events are open to all certified divers

How do we get our training?

You will join the CRF team at their offices at 9am to hear how they are working to save and replant the coral reefs in the Florida Keys.

Some practical demonstrations on how to plant Coral and make sure they can grow.

Following this you will get practical demonstration on how to clean and look after coral in the nursery and a chance have a go planting fake corals for yourself in the classroom mockup.

Your education and training session finishes around 11am so you can get an early lunch. Be at our dive shop in Jules undersea park at 1230 with your gear ready to board our boat and head out to the nursery. It takes around 50 mins to get to the nursery where we will moor up on one of the special CRF mooring Bouys.

If you do not have your own gear we can have plenty of rental equipment for you to use.

Whats the dive plan?

Working in buddy pairs and assisted by a CRF team member you will clean, harvest and plant coral.

First dive on the reef will be to help clean some of the 750 coral trees that CRF look after.

Second dive is made on the live coral reef where, depending on conditions, you will get to plant some coral. each coral plant has a registered number that you will be able to record and track progress over the years!

Each of the dives is around 45min in 30 feet of water or less.

 

We go to one of 2 different locations for these dives either to the nursery in Tavenier and then to Pickles reef OR we head out to Carysfort nursery and reef for out planting. The decision on where to go relies a lot on the tides and weather.

We return to the dock at Jules around 5pm.

Whats the cost

The cost for this coral restoration dive trip is $85 and includes tanks and weights. There is an additional donation of $50 per diver to CRF for this event.

What dates are available

The 2021 dates for these dives are;

Saturday 2 February

Saturday 20 March

Saturday 24 April

Saturday 22 May

Thursday 10 June

Tuesday 13 July

Saturday 21 August

Saturday 18 September

Saturday 16 October

Saturday 20 November

Monday 6 December

We may add more dates depending on demand, if you have a group of 6 or more that would like to go please let us know and we can arrange it for you.

If you would like to know more about plans to restore the reefs have a read of the Iconic Reef project in the Florida Keys.