Le Meridien Fisherman's Cove Project

Deep-sea corals Dear faithful (or new) reader, Relax and seat comfortably, it’s time to chill for a while. Imagine one minute, you are in a nice lagoon, you just finished to drink your fresh coconut cocktail and you decide to go for a swim in the warm water. The sun is hot, you can hear the tropical birds from the island singing in the jungle far away.  You have your mask, your snorkel and you start to nicely swim until you get to the reef. You calmly put your head underwater and the magic happens. Structure of incredible architecture and complexity appear, with colour you never suspected the existence, and graceful living forms flying around them. The wonderful ballet of colours stuns you for a while and you have to take back your respiration at the surface, but more by the emotion caused by the surprisingly beauty of this underwater world than from the real need of breathing. Now will you believe me if I tell you similar paradise exists in the deep water of the oce...

This photo has nothing to do with the topic but it attracts your curiosity “Niark Niark” (evil laugh). Hello curious reader, Hope you are doing good and ready to dive again in the incredible world of corals. Last time we spoke about polyps and zooxanthellae, remember? If not check rapidly the 1 st story about corals! Don’t be lazy, it’s worth it! We are far to understand all the mysteries that hide corals and we’ll probably never know them, like every nature forms. However, let’s try to discuss about the things we know for the moment. We’ve seen that corals are true builders. But they are not only simple builders: they are colourful builders! Red, pink, brown, green, yellow… they are colours for everybody! And guess where come from all these rainbows of colours? Yes, exactly my attentive reader! They came from the tiny algae who live inside the polyps: the zooxanthellae (most of the tropical hard corals possess this symbiont). The algae give colours to the cor...

Hey, Aishah in the snorkeling kiosk My name is Aishah Fanchette, I’m 19 years old from Seychelles and I work on Le Méridien Fisherman’s Cove project. I’m not new in the MCSS team, I worked one month at the Banyan Tree in 2015 with the turtle and terrapin project and worked two months on Cerf Island in 2016 with the CICP (Cerf Island Conservation Project) while I was still in school doing my work base attachments. Now that I have finished school at the Seychelles Maritime  Academy and obtained my Advance Certificate in Fisheries Science, MCSS was my first door to knock up. It was the best place to start and I also got experience in the job. So I got the position here at the Fisherman’s cove working as a Research Assistant. I have started to work here about 3 months ago and everything so far is going great. I get to learn different facts about turtles, fishes and mostly corals every day. Our main tasks are to handle the snorkeling kiosk, guide the clients on the snorkeling t...

Bonzour everyone, My name is Léopold and I’m the new intern in the Coral nurseries project at Le Méridien Fisherman’s Cove. I’m 22 years old and I’m doing my internship with the Marine Conservation Society in Seychelles (MCSS) for my master of “Marine Biodiversity and Conservation”. I first worked on the terrapins trapping in the South of Mahé and I joined the coral project last week.  I have to say that it’s really nice to be in Seychelles and to participate in this project. I used to be a scientific mediator in the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco during the Summer period. I remembered that it’s there, I really start to be fascinated by corals. The corals occupy less than 1% of the Ocean and they are still the host of approximately 25% of the marine worldwide biodiversity.  In a simple word, coral reefs are the underwater equivalent of the tropical rainforests. A true hotspot of biodiversity ! At first sight for most of the people they just look like a strange colo...

After the setting up of the snorkeling trail providing an improved snorkeling experience to guests and giving awareness about coral reefs biodiversity and conservation, “Unlock the sea” starts a restoration project of the coral reef! "Ecological restoration is the process of assisting a degraded, damaged or destroyed ecosystem back as close as possible to its original state in terms of structure and functions." (1) A Hawksbill turtle swimming over the coral reef  The global rapid decline of coral reefs due to natural and anthropogenic factors has led to the promotion of novel restoration approaches. One of the most promising and effective method is the “gardening” concept of active restoration, a two-step process: nurseries and transplantation . Small colonies or isolated fragments are farmed in in-situ underwater nurseries or reared first in ex-situ nurseries before being transplanted onto damaged reef areas when they have reached the adequate size (2,3)...