Candidasa Coral Restoration Tour
Candidasa Coral Restoration Tour
A beginner-friendly, shallow water experience where you will visit a Bali-based coral restoration NGO called Ocean Gardener. This is their first coral nursery and is perfect due to their shallow depth and accessible location in Candidasa, East Bali. It is only a short drive from popular tourist hotspots like Canggu, Ubud, Seminyak, and Kuta. You will begin by learning about corals, their ecological importance, and how they perform coral restoration before visiting the coral nursery and trying it yourself.
Under the guidance of a marine biologist, you will harvest a fragments from our donor colonies and then plant them back into the waters of Candidasa. This site is shallow and even walkable from the shore during low tide. You will see a broad variety of corals, as well as many fish species that have colonized the nursery area. Since the tides change daily, please consult their tide chart for the exact departure time on a specific date.
Start time changes daily due to the tides. Please check the tide chart for the actual start time.
Highlights
Learn about reefs and their restoration
The NGO will start with a brief presentation to give you some background on what a coral is, their importance to marine life, and the threats that they face today like climate change and unsustainable tourism development. It will help you better understand the corals when you see them in person during the snorkel part of the experience.
Snorkel the restoration area
We will collect your snorkel and fins and head out to the coral nursery. If the tide is really shallow, we can just walk out to the nursery. Your guide will point out the different types of corals that they have in the nursery.
Harvest coral cuttings
You will work with the NGO staff member to collect coral cuttings from donor colonies in the nursery. You will return to land where you will then learn to fragment the coral and make even more cuttings! You will mount the corals onto concrete plugs using epoxy.
Plant a coral
Together with your guide, you will go back and place your cuttings into the nursery. The NGO will continue monitoring your plantings and subsequently, when the colony is large enough, they will outplant them to the surrounding waters to restore the surrounding reefs.
Your Impact
Armed with basic knowledge about corals and the threats that they face, you can now better help spread awareness of the threats and the importance of the reefs to marine life. Your direct action planting corals here will help regenerate the reefs and provide more habitat for marine life. The proceeds from this visit helps Ocean Gardener fund the coral restoration work around indonesia and their outreach programs to local communities.
Prerequisites
- Able to swim
- Confident in the water
Includes
- Led NGO's marine biologist
- Snorkelling equipment (Snorkel, Mask, Fins). You are welcome to use your own equipment.
Excludes
- Transportation to/from the location.
- Accomodations
If you need help arranging accommodations and transportation, please contact us after booking and we’ll be happy to help you arrange it.
What to bring
- Long sleeve t-shirt or a rashguard for sun protection.
- If you must use sunscreen, please make sure it is reef-safe. (don't hurt the corals)
Meeting point
Ocean Gardener facility in Candidasa
Join the Waitlist.
Ocean Gardener is not currently taking bookings for this experience.
Plant your own coral in Candidasa, East Bali. Proceeds fund NGO's coral restoration and outreach work.
Full refund with self-cancellation up to 7 days before start time
Frequently Asked Questions
You will be helping
Ocean Gardener
Ocean Gardener is a Bali-based coral reef restoration non-profit. Established in 2016, they are a diverse team of biologists, divers and coral enthusiasts that drive to make change by restoring Indonesia’s degraded reef areas. Vincent, the founder, has over 25 years of coral farming experience and they have achieved great success rates with their coral restoration sites. They actively partner with local communities, hotels, resorts and dive shops to setup and deploy coral nurseries using our protocols. From these nurseries, we harvest donor coral to restore the surrounding reefs. Collectively with their partners, they have planted over 1 million corals. They offer visits to their coral nurseries in 3 different locations in Bali, as well as short and long format courses to learn about coral restoration. The proceeds from the visits and courses goes back into the community coral planting programs and coral research into their reproduction to see how the knowledge can be used to help save the reefs that are threatened by global warming.
Join the Waitlist.
Ocean Gardener is not currently taking bookings for this experience.
Plant your own coral in Candidasa, East Bali. Proceeds fund NGO's coral restoration and outreach work.
Full refund with self-cancellation up to 7 days before start time