Blogs
Caribbean Conservation in Action: Coral Conservation during Covid
Dive Grenada started the Grand Anse Artificial Reef Project (GAARP) back in 2013 and their biggest challenge has always been time. Busy running their dive shop in Grenada seven days a week, they always felt the project was not getting the attention it needed.
The arrival of the COVID pandemic in 2020 and the cessation of tourist visitors to the island has on the upside created a great opportunity for them to be able to devote some time to developing the project.
The project is now in its eighth year and they have seen the successful growth of a plethora of marine life on the site including a wide range of corals, sponges and over 30 different species of fish. The team felt that they now had the chance to get some ‘hard science’ set up and running and that is exactly what they have been doing.
They started by simply developing an underwater identification and numbering system that would withstand the marine environment. With a locally sourced and engineered solution now installed they were ready to call in the experts.
GAARP are thrilled to now have a volunteer local scientist trained in marine biology on the team. It has been an exciting time as they have worked to develop the best surveying methodology to assess, record and monitor the marine growth development on each individual pyramid structure. He will be assisted in is work by volunteers including members of the student community from the local university.
They have also used this downtime in their normal operations to reach out to like-minded environmental groups in Grenada to help them understand the issues and challenges that the marine environment is facing. Moving forward they are actively setting up collaboration partnerships with organisations and individuals to ensure that GAARP is both sustainable and meaningful to Grenada.
For more information contact Phil Saye: info@divegrenada.com or visit the GAARP Facebook page by clicking here.
Grand Turk, one of the islands of the Turks & Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, holds a special place in our hearts. Caroline worked on her MSc thesis here and met up with Dale from Oasis Divers who helped with boat transport out to the uninhabited islands for Caroline to study the marine bird populations. Dale also managed to persuade us to learn to dive and kick-started our love for the underwater world. We returned to complete our Dive Master qualification and once again to take some time out, clear our heads and make the decision to work as underwater photographers full time.
Grand Turk offers a classic combination of white sandy beaches and turquoise blue waters. It is an idyllic Caribbean island. Beneath the waves the sandy shallows, home to numerous Southern Stingrays, lead to an incredible vertical wall that plummets to the huge depths, making this one of the best wall diving locations in the Caribbean. With Providenciales and Salt Cay just short hops away, Grand Turk makes a fantastic island hopping destination and if you go early in the year, you might even be lucky enough to encounter migrating humpback whales.
With just a single day of diving at Cat Island on our island tour itinerary in The Bahamas we had everything crossed that we would get a chance to dive with the Oceanic Whitetip Sharks that frequent this area in April and May.
We were staying and diving with Greenwood Beach Resort, who had the team from Shark Explorers on hand to take us out to look for the Oceanic Whitetip Sharks. But nothing is guaranteed when it comes to big animal photography: would the sharks show up? would the weather stay calm? After two hours of bobbing on the water, the smell of chum filling the air and not a single sighting of a fin piercing the surface we were beginning to wonder if our luck had run out. And then…
Our Oceanic Whitetip Sharks made an appearance; first just two sharks, but this was enough to have us racing to put on our gear, grab our cameras and jump into the clear, warm, blue water. Before long we had 7 Oceanic Whitetips swimming around us, along with several of their more common cousins. Oceanic Whitetip Sharks can be very curious and will come up to divers and cameras without being fed. We spent a couple of hours, hovering between 2 and 10 meters, watching them swim before it was time to head back to the boat and end what turned out to be an amazing day in the water.
- Video shot with a Paralenz Dive Camera +
- Images shot with Olympus OMD Em1 MKII in Nauticam housing
To find out more visit the Greenwood Beach Resort website by clicking here.
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Caribbean Conservation in Action: Coral Conservation during Covid
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Caribbean Conservation in Action: Coral Conservation during Covid
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