Instructors and dive guides from Red Sea Diving College in Egypt's Sharm El Sheikh have successfully transported large sections of damaged corals to a new reef.
Corals begin to attach themselves
Collecting the damaged corals
Strange Cargo - transporting the corals
Instructors and dive guides from Red Sea Diving College in Egypt's Sharm El Sheikh have successfully transported large sections of damaged corals to a new reef. Metal artificial reef structures were sunk by the dive centre in Naama Bay last year to house corals from wrecks recently sold for salvage.
Together with marine biologists from the Ras Mohammed National Park, Red Sea Diving College staff was granted permission to remove corals from two wrecks, including the Million Hope and attach them to a series of artificial reefs. However, strong winds prevented the 16-strong diving team from removing corals from the Million Hope wreck during the first planned dive.
Under direction of marine park authorities, the divers changed course in a bid to save corals damaged by an illegal fishing vessel in a protected reef in Ras Mohammed National Park the previous week.
'Dr Mohammed Salem, our project partner and head of Ras Mohammed National Park had explained to us that large colonies of broken coral were strewn around the reef and were being destroyed by constant wave action,' said Red Sea Diving College spokesman Mark Fraenkel. 'We organised ourselves in to three teams. One to collect the coral, the second to transport it in crates back to the boat, and third, overseen by Dr Mohammed, to settle the coral into the seawater-filled crates once back on board. We took only the corals that were clearly begin swept about by the swell.'
In order for the coral to survive, the team had to transport them to the artificial reef by nightfall. During the two-hour journey back to the Red Sea Diving College house reef, the coral tanks were filled with fresh seawater every ten minutes.
'What was left of the daylight enabled us to get the corals bedded in,' said Frankel. 'One team of divers ferried the crates down to the seabed as another team began the attaching process. As recommended we used cable ties to hold the corals as securely as possible to the metal structures.
'Latest examinations show many of the branching corals already attaching themselves to the metal structures and some macro photography shows the polyps to be in a healthy state. Some of the table coral are not doing as well and some of the algal growth may need to be removed.'
Dive centre named ‘defender of the Red Sea’ A dive centre in the northern Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh has been presented with a Defenders of the Sea 2007 award by the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association (HEPCA).
