Reef Conservation

From: The British Virgin Islands SCUBA Organization
For: Immediate Release


July 15th, 2008: It has been a busy month for the "Sink The Flying Cloud Project"....

1) A website has been created so our Flying Cloud project has a permanent "home" all its own! It looks good! Check it out at Windjammer Flying Cloud

2) We have been down to Trinidad to go over the Flying Cloud, made sure she can withstand the tow up to the BVI. It looks like an arrival date in the BVI for the Flying Cloud will be in late October. No word on the actual sinking date of the wreck yet.

3) We have received the support of the National Parks Trust for our project and its sinking!

4) Conservation and Fisheries have supported our choice location to sink in between Cooper and Ginger Island and we are busy doing addtional studies that they have asked for. These are called Bathymetric surveys. One will be a large scale chart of the area it is to be sunk in, with GPS and Depth scales. We must also make fish counts, and plot how far out from the reef the barrel sponges go so they can decide exactly where she will lay.

5) We are now up and running with Ocean River Institute acting as our non -profit 501(c) 3 partner. Additionally, we can accept small donations online through Paypal on Sink the Flying Cloud DONATIONS page.

6) We have started collecting stories, and pictures and making "Memory" Pages on the Flying Cloud by the year. We have several up on the Windjammer website already, check them out with plenty more to come!

7) Our very own Brian Olson, from Sunchaser SCUBA on Virgin Gorda has written an article "The Caribbean's Newest Artifical Reef?" You can read it on the Sink the Flying Cloud site.

So, I guess the point of this post, is you can read everything on the Sink the Flying Cloud site

Photo courtesy of Ed Hibsman

With it being the Year of the Reef, and additionally, environmental month here in the BVI, there is all kinds of information being published on reefs. Do you know that I recently read that they have now done studies that say that all the suntan block that we are using is harming the reefs as well!
Shannon Gore, A Marine Biologist at Conservation and Fisheries here in the BVI has been, besides her "regular" work, writing articles every month on various topics for the BVI Yacht Guide on various topics. Here is a PDF of the latest article Ancient Reefs

In her never ending dig for material, she put some research into the coral spawning which takes place every summer and came up with some loose predictions on when we might see some here in the BVI!
She will have a article coming out in the BVI Yacht Guide August Issue, called "Sex on the Reef" and NO, that is not the same things as some of our naughty guests try and sneak away to do!!
I quote from her email here:
I came across a literature review on all published papers dealing with spawning dates and pulled out all the broadcast corals with information on exact dates in which spawning has occured in Puerto Rico in the past. Here is a link to some of the research materialThese are based on 7-8 days after the full moon in July, Aug & Sept. (Most people think it is only in Aug!) Other areas in the Caribbean are very close to the same dates so I figured the BVI would be during the same times. So here is what I have come up with (coral species specific) - these are only predictions!!!! but based on the scientific literature. Warmer than normal water temps may change all this of course. I would suggest 6-8 days after the 1st full moon in each month and plan on somewhere between 8-11pm (most occurences were around 9:30).

Elkhorn coral 25-26 July and/or 22-24 August
Boulder brain coral 23 Aug - 9pm
Symetrical brain coral 25-Jul and/or 23 Aug; 8-9pm
Boulder star coral 23 Aug; 9:30-11pm and/or 22-Sep
Great star coral 25-Jul and/or 23-Aug and/or 22-Sep
Pillar coral 23-Aug
Massive starlet coral 25-Jul and/or 23-Aug and/or 22-Sep





So if you intend to be diving in the Caribbean at any of those times, or if you are not, maybe you should! then take the opportunity to see what you can find. I will be down there with my trusty camera for the end of August and September ones for sure!