Sunset Divers is calling on local scuba divers to assist with an underwater restoration project to repair a patch of coral that sustained serious damage after a cruise ship accidentally dropped its anchor at a dive site in George Town last month.
A meeting will be held on Thursday night, Sept. 18, at Sunset House and divers are invited to attend.
“We are calling for more volunteers. We cannot have enough for this project,” said Sunset House general manager Keith Sahm.
The aim is to carry out a coral restoration project similar to the Maasdam reef restoration, which occurred after a cruise ship dropped its anchor in Soto’s Reef in George Town in 1996 and damaged a large swathe of reef. That project was carried out by local divers and the Department of Environment and took about 9,000 hours of underwater work.
During the restoration work, divers used epoxy, a type of waterproof cement, to attach dislodged corals back on the reef in an effort to repopulate the coral. The divers also sorted coral and rubble, took rubble off the site, moved large boulders back on the reef, and reattached 3,000 individual pieces of coral, as well as monitored the site.
Earlier this month, divers from the DoE found that nearly 12,000 square feet of live coral was damaged after the Carnival Magic cruise ship dropped its anchor and chain at the Don Foster’s Dive site.
Tim Austin, deputy director of the Department of Environment, said the volunteer divers at the site will focus on “righting upturned coral heads and placing and securing any living coral fragments to areas of the reefs to increase their chances of recovery.”
Mr. Austin said his department will assist where possible, but the project will be headed by Sunset Divers staff as the DoE is “currently resource constrained due to ongoing fieldwork commitments.”
Thursday night’s meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at Sunset House on South Church Street in the Sunset Divers classroom.
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