Maldives: First surveys

Update from our Maldives coral reef expedition www.biosphere-expeditions.org/maldives

The team all arrived on time on Saturday, with briefings and talks on the first afternoon and our first dive at Baros. The following morning we went on one of our longest crossings, over to Rasdoo, and a more interesting reef for us to dive on for the next two days. Here the team learnt to identify the fish, invertebrates and substrate that they need to know to carry out the Reef Check surveys, looking at things underwater and in the ‘classroom’ that the main salon on the boat turns into for these few days. The time was filled with talks and tests, interspersed with dives, and our final dive was a practice Reef Check dive, with everyone working across two survey teams. The dive was enlivened by one buddy pair descending down the wrong marker buoy and not finding the survey area :), but all ended well and everyone else completed the survey work successfully.

This morning we have moved to the area where we will start our formal survey work, everyone having passed the necessary tests, congratulations. The first Reef Check dive is upon us!