SCUBAnaut News
Coral Trees from the Anchor Up
SCUBAnauts has been diving in Key Largo for the past week. The Nauts and I have been given the opportunity to swim in coral reefs, see some snazzy sea creatures, and work with Mote Marine Laboratory and a few of their marine biologists. On Wednesday our day started at...
Coral Restoration Begins on Land
It was honestly a great experience to see the process on how MOTE outplants coral onto the reef. It certainly is a long process but is worth every second of it. Using all the tools really showed how much of a great experience working with MOTE is. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something like this. It definitely was a messy process from cleaning snail poop to working with concrete. After all this land work, the nauts are definitely prepared for tomorrow in the water!
Photogrammetry Is A Team Sport
Hello, my name is Garrett and I was the photogrammetry lead on the March Keys trip with Mote Marine Lab. I am from the Crystal River Chapter and am still a Naut-in-training. I have been in SCUBAnauts for a little over a year now. The March Keys trip offered a...
Coral Outplanting and Image Capturing
Sunday, October 23, was the third day of our adventurous Keys trip. This was the day we finally got to start diving! We woke up, got ready and left for Captain Hooks, which is the dive shop that we partner with. The first three dives on Sunday, our goal was to...
Scholarship Program in Action
This past year has been a phenomenal experience in the organization, and I feel honored to be a member. The scholarship program provided me with most of the gear, and all of the training I need. I’ve felt overwhelmed at times, but that’s just because I’m still new to this whole diving thing. Overall I would say that SCUBAnauts has had a phenomenal impact on my life, and I can’t wait to continue my journey.
A New Generation of Corals
This week, 6 other SCUBAnauts and I departed to Mote Marine Laboratory in Summerland Key, Florida. Mote requested SCUBAnauts to help record first time data on the spawning of outplanted Staghorn Coral (Acropora cervicornis). Mote Marine Lab uses one form of coral...
Red Lights Only – A Coral Spawn Tale
I was assigned to look after two tanks that had two to three pieces of coral in them. After a couple of hours, a different tank that I was not watching over started to spawn while my coral never started to set. Setting is the process where the coral start to create their gamete bundles.
Coral Restoration, BINGO and Night Dives
On Thursday we were in a MOTE coral nursery, restoring and helping staghorn coral. We did this by splitting into 2-3 groups and worked on coral trees made of PVC pipe. When corals are in a high density, the spread of disease is more efficient, just as it is with human...
Diving at USC Wrigley Institute
SCUBAnauts spent two days diving at USC Wrigley Institute to learn about Southern California’s marine ecosystems and survey methods.
Four Dives at Casino Point
This next dive we laid down three 15-meter transect lines right through the kelp forest. Our goal was to divide into three buddy pairs and do three types of surveys each on these lines. These three surveys consisted of an invert survey, which we counted all species of invertebrates on and two meters around the transect, an algae survey…