Day 4; Underwater Demolition at Cayo Ron

The tired but stoked demolition crew

 Last Thursday, a stacked  crew joined myself, Paco and Carlos of Monaquatics, and Captain Edwin "Pauco" Font to participate in the chapters' coral reef restoration project titled "Coral Reef Protection through Marine Debris Removal in two Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); Arrecifes de Tourmaline and Reserva Marina Tres Palmas.  The goal of Thursday's adventure was to demolish the boat hull by cutting it with a 36" underwater chainsaw and transplant additional corals from the rudder.  After an extremely long and arduous effort we were successful.  The chapter would like to thank Taino Divers for providing 9 tanks of air, Paco and Carlos from Monaquatics for providing 6 tanks of air, Surf 787 for providing a soft-top surfboard, Hector Ruiz from Reefscaping for his contribution of pre-mixed cement and other supplies to properly transplant the corals, Sean Griffin NOAAs' Puerto Rico reef restoration field coordinator for field oversight,  Shayne McIntyre from OnSafari as well as Omar Ortiz from Seagrant for documenting, DRNA and Idelfonso Ruiz for debris pickup, and lastly but certainly not least the Atlantis Diving Contractors crew of 4 Miquel Molina, David Jesus, Luis Colon and Juan Colon for the underwater demolition services they provided.  Thanks!!  Below are photos from the Thursday's activities.

Luis Colon of Atlantis Diving Contractors cuts a portion of the large boat hull.  The insets are different angles taken during his cut.  The lower image shows the boat hull in pieces at our drop spot in a wide open sediment area.  These pieces were subsequently lift bagged and brought onto the boat; it is not as easy as it sounds because some of them weighed 400-500 lbs! (photo: S.McIntyre)

Here I am swimming subsurface with a portion of the bow guiding it to our designated drop spot.  This was a bit more of a tame piece to move that only required the use of 2 50 lb lift bags, but you can clearly see it is much larger than me. (Photo S.McIntyre) 

  

The diagram above is a 3-Dimensional perspective of the debris field at Cayo Ron. The approximate size of the debris field is 3.2 acres and has been the focus of our efforts. The upper image depicts an aerial image of a portion of the western insular platform with the northwestern region of Cayo Ron displaying a bathymetry layer. The middle inset corresponds a different view of the bathymetry layer of Cayo Ron with the lower view representing the 3D line of sight at water level. This gives the viewer a unique perspective as to how the debris is depicted spatially in the backreef at Cayo Ron. Note: The objects are accurate in space but not in size. Waypoints depicted their whereabouts and their size was scaled relative to the recorded size of each piece/object and scaled using symbology in ArcGIS. The least accurate attribute of this image is the amount of surface the pieces are actually covering at Cayo Ron in the image. Future depictions will correct for this.

We have one more field day left for our work at Cayo Ron then we will be shifting our efforts towards Rincon.  If you would like to join us for our last field day at Cayo Ron to be held sometime during the week of 9/26 please contact me by email.  Thanks! 


Contact Wessley Merten at 787-436-8300 or wessley.merten@upr.edu for more information on helping out in this coral reef restoration and marine debris removal effort.

Day 3; Transplanting Corals at Cayo Ron

Another happy group of volunteers!

This past Saturday a large group of volunteers joined myself and Paco and Carlos of Monaquatics to participate in the chapters' coral reef restoration project titled "Coral Reef Protection through Marine Debris Removal in two Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); Arrecifes de Tourmaline and Reserva Marina Tres Palmas.  The goal of Saturday's adventure was to survey, mark, and position additional debris to be removed off the reef and transplant corals off of the large boat hull.  This group of volunteers including Hector Ruiz and Antonio Ortiz completed the tasks at hand.  The chapter would like to thank Paco and Carlos from Monaquatics for providing 6 tanks of air, Surf 787 for providing 2 soft-tops and a kayak, and Hector and Antonio of Reefscaping for their contribution of pre-mixed cement and other supplies to properly transplant the corals.  Thanks!!  Below are photos from the Saturday's activities including the first one of the fourth coral transplant taken from the boat hull.     

Coral #4 Porites astreoides (common name = Mustard hill coral) documented after it was adhered to suitable substrate just meters from where it was removed from the hull.  In total, 36 corals were transplanted off the hull composed of 3 other species commonly known as brain coral, star coral, and finger coral.  Their progress will be monitored for a year.  The black and gray deviations on the board are 5 cm apart (Photo W.Merten).

Below is a figure of the placement of 29 of the 36 transplanted corals in roughly identical habitat (i.e. depth, light, wave activity, temperature) as where they were removed, besides the type of substrate.  This figure is based off of in situ (in the field) measurements with a measuring tape and meter stick.    

Above is a diagram of an estimate of the placement of 29 of the 36 transplanted corals at Cayo Ron on Saturday.  The sequential placement of each coral was measured in situ in meters to reveal the transplant line.  The substrate where the corals were placed is classified as colonized pavement and linear reef according to NOS habitat maps.  There are 4 more corals that will be transplanted off the rudder and added to this line soon (Fig. W.Merten). 

Below is a figure of the second largest piece of boat debris that we will be cutting into more manageable pieces to be lifted off the reef on our 4th field day (TBA).  Although this is the second largest piece (~ 6 sq. meters) of debris we will be removing off the reef, it is only 10% the size of the hull!  However, it still has a fully functioning rudder that swivels!

Above is a diagram of the rudder.  The numbers correspond to the corals that we will be transplanting from the hull to nearby location.  There is also a large soft coral (not shown) in the middle of the upper panel that we will be transplanting as well.  The size of the rudder (~6 sq. m) was estimated by subtracting the unoccupied space the rudder filled from the area of a 6 x 9 m grid positioned on the substrate during the survey.  The rudder is denoted by dotted lines coming from it's location on the lower panel.  It is 1 meter in length and .6 meters tall (Fig. W.Merten).

Below are the survey tracks after the first 3 field days at Cayo Ron. 

Above is a diagram of all the survey tracks the volunteers have conducted during the search and recovery of the marine debris in Cayo Ron's northern back reef.  From the surveys and recovery of the debris it is postulated that not one but two boats ran aground here (Fig. W.Merten).

Below is all the debris located during the first 3 days of work at Cayo Ron. 

Above is a diagram of all the debris the volunteers have marked and documented over the past three outings.  The symbols correspond to the type of debris we discovered group by category and denoted in the legend.  Additionally, the hull and rudder polygons were placed where they occur on the reef.  *Note:  The size of the symbols and objects are not to scale.  However, the distance between one and another is (Fig. W.Merten).

The next field day will consist of cutting the boat hull and rudder into more manageable pieces to be taken back to land and deposited in a proper landfill.  This date has yet to be determined but if you are interested in helping out please feel free to contact me.

Contact Info:
Wessley Merten

Email:  wessley.merten@upr.edu
P:  787-436-8300 

Day 2; Removing a TON of debris off Cayo Ron

Friday's crew (Photo Shayne McIntrye)

This past Friday a small group of volunteers joined myself and Paco and Carlos of Monaquatics to participate in the chapters' coral reef restoration project titled "Coral Reef Protection through Marine Debris Removal in two Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); Arrecifes de Tourmaline and Reserva Marina Tres Palmas.  The goal of Friday's adventure was to remove fiberglass and wood slabs from 2 old shipwrecks off/out of Cayo Ron's beautiful back reef.  The slabs and other pieces of debris were mostly previously marked and positioned during the first outing on the 27th of August.  However, James Sethward and I still managed to lift-bag a few more newly discovered pieces to strategic sediment laden drop-spots where we moved our vessel and extracted the debris later that afternoon.  Below is a photo of one of the 6 large slabs we removed on Friday.  Those slabs, plus many other pieces of boat debris such as columns, heat exchangers, stereo speakers, etc. amounted in more than a TON (2200 lbs) of debris being removed from Cayo Ron.  We arrived at this amount after the volunteers estimated the weight of each piece once on-board.  Additionally, each piece was measured with a meter stick and we calculated a rough estimate of the area of reef substrate the pieces were covering to be ~21.4 square meters.

The chapter would like to thank Taino Divers for providing 6 tanks of air and Surf 787 for providing 2 soft-top surfboards and a kayak. We would also like to thank Idelfonso Ruiz for organizing DRNA to come and pick up the debris promptly upon our arrival.  More thanks go out to Paco and Carlos for their hard work and I would also like to thank Shayne and Shannon McIntyre for their help with documenting the adventure.  Thanks!!

Above is a photo of the crew hoisting a large ~200 lb slab off the reef.  (Photo W.Merten ( L to R); Paco, Carlos, James, Terry and Steve).

Once back at Monaquatics, DRNA was there to pick up the debris and truck it to a landfill.  This is all the debris we removed and as you can see it completely fills the back of this large truck bed (and more!).  Great work crew!  

 

Contact Wessley Merten at 787-436-8300 or wessley.merten@upr.edu for more information on helping out in this coral reef restoration and marine debris removal effort.