What we do

Groundtruthing

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Over the last few weeks, you’ve heard a lot about our SCUBA surveys, what we’ve seen, and the health and resilience of these reefs. One of our major goals during this Expedition is to identify areas of rich biodiversity, as …

Fishing at the Farasan Banks

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Even though we are in a very remote location off the southern Red Sea coast of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, fishermen abound. There are many coastal villages near the Farasan Banks with large fishing communities. Many of our sites …

Assessing reef health and resilience

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Most of us have read about the coral reef crisis and have heard about the factors that have contributed to the degradation of reefs – most often overfishing, pollution, sedimentation have been cited as the causes, and more recently climate …

The Amazing Cuttlefish

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During a dive on an inshore reef I saw my first cuttlefish, a pharaoh cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis). A cephalopod related to the squid and octopus, this animal has eight tentacles and two arms located in pouches beneath its eyes. It …

The Hungry, Hungry Corallivores

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On most of the reefs I have dived on over the last ten days, I can always find a coral that is missing some of its tissue. Most often, it’s been eaten by some other animal. Two colonies of Acropora, …

The Hunt for the Colorful Coral

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Over the last nine days we have visited many exciting and unusual reefs, starting close to shore at the northern end of the Farasan Banks and slowly working our way south. We have seen some areas that appear, at least …

Acropora Gardens at Farasan Bank

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We headed east today in search of a dive spot protected from the swell, with hopes that the wind would die down. Good fortune, as conditions improved, and we were able to explore both the protected southeastern and exposed northwestern …

A Field of Flowers

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This morning we headed to Shib Ammar, a submerged patch reef at the outer edge of the Farasan Banks, some 40 miles offshore. Twenty knot winds from the northwest, and a 1.5 meter swell made for a wet and bumpy …

Sharks and Rays Today

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Our fifth day of research was an epic day. Once again, we had blue skies, calm seas and clear water. One of the local experts warned us of strong winds and a change in conditions, but so far the seas …

Recent Reef Disturbance

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Our team continued reef assessments along middle shelf locations to better characterize the spatial extent of the disturbance. We first examined two locations along the unnamed submerged reef platform described yesterday, first at the northwestern tip, about 6.4 km west …