Between 2016 and 2020 I was part of a school club where we partnered up with a dive centre to do beach & reef clean-ups and deploy artificial reef structures to support the local marine life. This operation took place off the coast of Pattaya City, Thailand where there is a lot of human pollution along the coast and damage from boats to the marine ecosystems. Every few months, we would go out to some of the neighbouring islands and in two teams, clean the beach and the sea floor.
I was part of the research and development team where we were in charge of creating the nurseries and new structures for our artificial reef. We welded mild steel frames together and wrapped them in metal mesh. This was the skeleton on which our reefs would grow. Underwater, we would instal the new structure and attach staghorn coral, local and fast growing, from our staghorn nursery onto the newly introduced structure. We used pliers to snip off branches, and zip ties to attach the snipings to the new structure. While down there, we would monitor the other structures and their growth. It was always so rewarding seeing fish and crustaceans enjoying their new habitat. I even remember the day I saw a fan coral growing on one of the structures as this told us that our habitat was attracting more diverse coral and organism species.
