Becoming a PADI Reef Renewal Diver

Photo by Nicole Pelletier

From passion to purpose, I'm thrilled to now be a PADI certified Reef Renewal Diver! With this certification, I can now volunteer with Reef Renewal Bonaire to help maintain coral nurseries and outplant corals. The course itself takes two days and you must already be a certified scuba diver to participate. The first day is more introductory and theory based and the second is more in water work. You'll learn about coral ecology, how to clean the nurseries, what threats to watch out for, how to tie, hang, and fragment nursery corals, how nurseries are organized, and how to remove corals from the nursery and outplant them onto the reef. Let's dive in!

Where to take this course

I did my course with Nicole at VIP Diving! I thought she was an incredible instructor and all of the Reef Renewal instructors truly care about Bonaire's coral reefs. Each of them invest their free time into maintaining coral nurseries. Nicole is now working a Divi where the course is also offered. Many dive shops around Bonaire offer the course and each has their own coral nursery. 

Course Structure

In the 2 day Reef Renewal Course, you'll review a coral's role in the ecosystem, followed by cleaning techniques, tying, hanging, and fragmenting. Last, you'll talk about outplanting and practice building outplanted structures with old coral skeletons. Then, you'll go and put your classwork into practice while diving. It's important that you have great buoyancy for this course!!!!! Many times the course becomes a lesson on buoyancy and you'll miss out on more interaction with the growing corals. I won't go over how to actually fragment, tie, and hang corals (I'll leave that for the course) but I will show you some of my activities. 
You will need some equipment for this course. However, all of it should be provided by the dive shop. I highly recommend wearing gloves (which aren't usually allowed in Bonaire except for Reef Renewal) so double check if your dive shop has gloves for you!

Video Walkthrough 

Let's visit the coral nursery together! All videos are by Nicole Pelletier. 

Welcome to the coral nursery! Here only elkhorn (acropora palmata) and staghorn (acropora cervicornis) corals are growing. Elkhorns grow on the top and staghorns on the bottom!

A closeup of the hanging acropora cervicornis corals!

Setting up corals for outplanting. 

After I built my outplanting structure of acropora cervicornis corals! Felt so good to leave a positive mark on my favorite dive site - Calabas Reef! Good luck little guys :)