This year, in mid June, we established Bequia's first coral nursery with plans to regenerate the reef at Devils Table and other areas along the leeward coast.

The finished product was the culmination of nearly five years of planning, talking and finally doing where I drove everyone nuts with all my questions. Now we have the first ten nursery trees fully stocked with acropora palmata (Elkhorn), we will continue to pursue expansion of the nursery and,  in the future, add different species.

Over the next ten to twelve months we'll be keeping the nursery structures clean to give the growing corals the best chance possible for survival and growth. When the corals have reached an optimum size they will be out planted onto the reef where we will continue to record their progress.


From choosing a coral to harvest to hanging a fragment, each step is meticulously recorded. We log where the coral came from, take before and after photos, assign each stand its own "tree" and track survival rates. This will enable us to see if corals from some areas do better than others.

None of this would have been possible without funding from the SVG Conservation Fund who granted us the funds to establish the nursery and to keep the project going through at least two out planting cycles. 

We also couldn't have undertaken the project without Ken Nedimyer of Nedimyer Consulting Services. Ken took us "from soup to nuts" providing us with the materials and knowledge to establish our nursery. Ken, his wife Denise, and volunteers Andrew and Deidre gave us hands on help to build and stock the nursery. From tools to techniques, there is nothing they haven't thought of in the process of building a nursery and they work with lightening speed and unwavering energy!

If you would like a snorkel tour of the nursery or would like to be involved in the maintenance of a tree, we would be happy to supply you with information. 

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Cathy

Have you lost your certification card? Did you learn to dive in college and are unrecognisable in the photo? (see photo above - me without grey hair!) Or did you qualify as a Junior Open Water Diver when you were 10 and now at 28 you think it's time for a card that doesn't say you need your parent to dive with you? Replacing your certification card is quick and easy!

​In addition to the standard card that you were issued when you got certified you now have the option of downloading a digital card on your phone or tablet. It's one less thing you have to remember to bring on vacation!

Here are the links for whichever card you prefer: 
​
 Standard diver card: https://apps.padi.com/scuba-diving/replacement-card/

​E-card instructions: www.padi.com/ecard-faq

​

If you’re snorkeling at Devil’s Table or diving at any shallow depth around Bequia it’s likely you’ll see lots of Sergeant Majors. Distinctive with their five vertical black bands and abundant, often in a school of hundreds at Devil’s Table, they’re easy to spot.  You might also have noticed that these are feisty little fish who become very territorial over particular areas. 
Look a little closer and you'll notice that the sergeant major intent on attacking you is darker colored than normal and very close by there's a bright purple patch, usually on the side of a rock. So what's this all about? Reproduction! During November to April sergeant majors are courting and laying eggs and this aggressive behavior is dad making sure no-one eats his kids. Spotting fish eggs underwater is fairly rare but once you spot a patch of these you'll notice dozens of others nearby.

When the eggs are bright purple they're freshly laid and over the next 6-7 days they will slowly change color as the embryo develops. Dad will stick around until the eggs hatch when presumably he'll go off to the pub for a well earned beer or two.

At Devil's Table the reef butterflyfish, seen above left, have a voracious appetite for these eggs even using divers as cover to launch a stealth attack.  Recently I've been pecked on the head by a scrawled filefish who thought I was competition for this fishy delicacy!


 Thanks to Tamsin Eyles for the photos.

What a fantastic place to learn to dive! Warm, crystal clear water, tropical fish and an abundance of beautiful sea fans and corals make learning to dive an experience you'll never forget. 

So what are your options? In short, numerous! PADI has done an amazing job designing their courses to have the flexibility to study at your own pace and complete all training and dives with one instructor or in multiple locations if you're traveling through our chain of islands.

There are three steps to complete PADI Scuba Diver or Open Water Diver certification:
Step one is gaining the knowledge to make you a safe diver and knowledgable dive buddy. This section of the course has the most flexibility in how you attain the knowledge required. You can choose from:

1. E-learning
2. PADI Touch
3. Paperback Open Water Diver Manual

PADI e-learning is an online course that allows you to sign up for your scuba classes and study the theory at your own pace. We've found that this is an excellent way to get a head start on learning to dive particularly if you've already completed a Discover Scuba Dive and know you want to become certified to dive. The benefits of studying in your time include not having to spend your vacation time trying to squeeze in homework whilst everyone else is enjoying sunset cocktails waiting to see the green flash! 
                                      See how PADI e-learning works here

If you have an iPad or other tablet PADI Touch is a tablet friendly alternative to e-learn. The Touch app is downloaded allowing you to complete the chapters offline whenever and where-ever you have time for study. Both the e-learn and tablet format content include videos to demonstrate key points and skills and is ideal for younger learners who benefit from seeing concepts demonstrated.

If you prefer to study from a book the Open Water manual and video are still available, however you will need to schedule classroom time with an instructor to complete the knowledge reviews, quizzes and exams. 
You can collect your manual to read during your course or you can purchase a manual from your nearest PADI dive centre to read before you arrive.

Whichever method you choose you will receive thorough instruction ensuring mastery of your subject.

Step two - Now the real fun starts - you're finally getting in the water!  PADI instructors call this part of training confined water. The confined water might be a pool or a shallow area off the beach. Either way it's the section of the course that your instructor explains why and how you do underwater skills that help you gain confidence and solve problems.
 Again you have choices how you would like to schedule this part whether it is with an instructor in your home area during evenings or a weekend class or here with us. 

Step three - You're nearly there with just the four open water dives to complete! If you're sailing through the islands you can choose to dive with PADI instructors along your route. Just in St Vincent and the Grenadines alone there are instructors available on St Vincent, Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Union and Petit St Vincent. But even if you want to complete all your training dives with one instructor you'll only need two days to complete your four dives.

After your dives you'll log each one with your instructor as your proof of experience. The final step is to be issued a temporary certification card.  Congrats to you! 
As with any other activity your certification card is your license to learn - every dive brings a new experience. Whether it's a new location, a new environment (cold water diving anyone? not me!) or just a passion for spotting new creatures, learning to scuba dive can bring you an activity to enjoy for years to come.


Best fishes,

Cathy





  

...especially us and Tamsin who took all of the seahorse photos in the pictures above. Tamsin very artistically framed herself with the orange seahorse in the centre photo!

By far the most frequent response when we ask divers "what would you like to see" is "a seahorse". We can't always find one but the most reliable reef for seahorse hunting and finding is Moonhole. Over the last eighteen months a small family of seahorses have made their home tucked away in the sponges close to the mooring.  We've noted seven different seahorses there, sometimes within a few inches of each other. Every now and again they disappear and we have a frustrating few months where we can't track them down but given time they eventually head back towards each other and with luck we find them again. 
Recently we've also found three regulars in Rocky Bay too. Two black and one orange seahorse stay in the very shallow area near our mooring. There are hundreds of rope sponges in this area so they can be quite tricky to find but when we teach our Discover Scuba and Open Water classes at this area daily we can keep track of them. Rocky Bay has also been a frogfish magnet this year, but that's a different blog!
Come and join us on a seahorse hunt.

Tamsin visits Bequia as often as she can and then very kindly lets us use her photos on our website. 99.9% of the photos featured throughout this website are taken by Tamsin. She has also had her photos featured in the 2013 Ins and Outs to SVG in a special dive guide feature written by Polly Philipson and in the yet to be released Digital Dive Guide to SVG
You can see more of Tamsin's work at www.teup.co.uk