When I woke up this morning I had to hurry and get down to the taxi that would take us to the dock. After breakfast we headed out to the boats because we had to get going on our expedition. Today was the biggest day and the reason we came down to the BVI, coral replant. We had two dives for today, the first was to find stag horn coral and get pieces, while the second dive was to place those pieces in the jesuit reef. We were briefed on what to do. There were two boats and each boat was trying to get ten pieces of coral. The coral we were looking for was coral that was bleaching or dying. We would get these pieces and put them on the boat. Preston, my dive partner, and I found two big pieces of coral. After our boat got ten we went back on the boat. It was time to break off the pieces that we were going to use on our reef. I learned that when you get the coral you cut about two centimeters above the bleached or dying part. We cut all of the coral into pieces we could zip tie or epoxy to a rock. After about a forty five minute surface time we went to a knew location so we could put these coral in our reef. We had to snorkle over to the designated reef area and now it was time to plant. Each group got a piece of coral that they could plant. Preston and I were the first group to go and we went down and glued the coral to a rock. After that we went back to the boat and on the boat I learned that our reef is located right next to a resort. The owner of the resort graduated from a jesuit school and said he would make sure that people do not drop anchor at this location. This is the first time using this specific location for our reef. The other reefs were destroyed by anchor dropping by other boats which is one of the big reasons why coral reefs get destroyed. The reef is very shallow. It is only about fifteen to twenty feet so hopefully no boats will be dropping anchor there. This was my second favorite day after the rhone dive because we had a job to do under water. This was our last time diving which I am very disappointed about but I have had a great time.
