Coral nursery · Turtle hatchery · Ghost net recovery
Free volunteer schemes collapse the week the marketing budget moves on. Paid programmes buy nursery frames, pay night-patrol wages, and keep running in August when nobody is watching. Two of the three below cost money. The third is free because it should be.
156
coral species in Bar Reef Sanctuary
Alongside 283 fish species across roughly 306 km² — the richest recorded reef biodiversity in the Indian Ocean region. Declared a sanctuary in 1992.
100 / 300
coral and reef-fish species around Trincomalee
Most of which are present inside Pigeon Island National Park, where the reef is dominated by branching Acropora with Faviidae and Poritidae around the rocky islets.
5
sea turtle species in Sri Lankan waters
Green, hawksbill, olive ridley, loggerhead and leatherback. Hawksbill is Critically Endangered; green is Endangered.
Dec – Apr
peak turtle nesting season
Which coincides exactly with our southern operating season, so nest patrol runs alongside normal diving rather than as a separate trip.
You dive the nursery, clean the frames, and out-plant fragments onto degraded reef. Then you tag what you planted and we send you its survival data at six and twelve months.
Coral nurseries work by fragmenting fast-growing branching species — Acropora, mostly, which is what dominates Pigeon Island — and growing them on suspended frames until they are large enough to be cemented onto damaged reef. The bottleneck is never coral. It is labour: the frames silt and algae over, and someone has to get in the water and clean them, every few weeks, forever.
That is the dive. First tank on the nursery — brushing frames, checking mortality, fragmenting healthy donors. Second tank out-planting onto a degraded section with marine epoxy, then photographing and GPS-tagging each plug. Your tags go into the monitoring set, and you get the survival numbers back twice in the first year.
We charge for this rather than running it as free CSR, because unpaid volunteer schemes collapse the moment the marketing budget moves. Paid programmes buy frames.
Where the money goes
Night patrol on a nesting beach with the hatchery team. Find nests, record them, relocate clutches at risk from tide or poaching, and release hatchlings at dawn if the timing falls right.
Sri Lanka's south coast beaches — Kosgoda above all — are confirmed nesting sites for olive ridley, green and hawksbill turtles. Peak nesting runs December to April, which is exactly when our southern base is operating.
The work is unglamorous and matters enormously. You walk a beach transect in near-darkness with red light only, watch for a female hauling out, and then wait — often an hour or more — while she digs and lays without disturbance. Nests below the high-water line or in poaching-exposed stretches are excavated and reburied in the hatchery at the same depth and orientation. Everything is recorded: species, clutch count, GPS, sand temperature.
Sand temperature determines sex in sea turtles. Warmer nests produce females. That measurement is now one of the most important numbers on the beach, and you will be the one taking it.
We do not do daytime tank photos with turtles, and we do not run hatcheries that hold hatchlings back for tourist releases. Both harm the animals. If a release falls in your window, it happens at first light, which is when it should.
Where the money goes
Free for certified divers. Lost fishing gear keeps killing for decades after it is dropped; we cut it off the reef once a month and land it.
Abandoned and lost fishing gear does not stop fishing. Monofilament net wrapped around a coral head keeps catching fish, then the fish attract more predators, and the whole assembly keeps working for years.
Once a month at each base we run a two-tank clean: cutting tools, lift bags, and a hard rule that nothing gets pulled until it is confirmed the coral will not come with it. Recovered net goes ashore for recycling. It is free, we provide gear and tanks, and it is the single most immediately effective thing a certified diver can do here.
Advanced Open Water minimum, because cutting entanglement at depth with a lift bag is not an Open Water skill.
The log
These are animals genuinely recorded on the reefs we dive, ordered by how close they are to being gone. Sighting data from our dives goes into the national monitoring set — a Critically Endangered hawksbill on your third dive is a data point as well as a good day.
Eretmochelys imbricata
පොතු කැස්බෑවා · அலகு ஆமை
Narrower head and overlapping scutes distinguish it from the green. Critically endangered globally, and the shell trade is the reason. Sponge specialist, so it works the reef edges rather than the seagrass.
Chelonia mydas
ගල් කැස්බෑවා · பச்சை ஆமை
The one you will most likely meet feeding on the shallow reef in the morning. Nests on Sri Lankan beaches including Kosgoda, peak December to April.
90–120 cm
Cheilinus undulatus
Also called humphead wrasse. Endangered, slow-growing, and one of the species that makes the Bar Reef Sanctuary designation matter.
Carcharhinus melanopterus
කළු තුඩු මෝරා · கருந்துடிப்பு சுறா
Resident at Shark Point Reef off Pigeon Island in eight metres of water. Non-aggressive and habituated to snorkellers. Settle on the sand and stop moving; they close the distance themselves.
120–160 cm
Lepidochelys olivacea
බටු කැස්බෑවා
Rare on the reef but a primary nester on Kosgoda beach, where our nest-patrol programme runs through the December–April season.
60–70 cm
Nesting beaches, not reef sites
Gymnothorax javanicus
ආඳා · விலாங்கு
The open mouth is respiration, not threat. Largest moray in the Indo-Pacific and regularly over two metres at Kotuwa Gala.
150–250 cm
Sphyraena barracuda
ජීලාවා
Schools hold station against current, which is why the good barracuda sites are never the calm ones.
100–150 cm
Taeniura lymma
Tucked under ledges and coral overhangs on sand margins during the day. Venomous barb — look, do not corner.
30–35 cm
Cetoscarus bicolor
ගිරා මාළුවා
Rasps algae off dead coral and excretes it as sand. A single large parrotfish produces hundreds of kilos of white beach sand a year — the beach you walked in on is substantially fish.
40–80 cm
Amphiprion clarkii
The most common anemonefish on Sri Lankan reefs — not the orange one from the film, which is A. ocellaris. Every fish in the anemone is born male; the largest becomes female.
Chaetodon semilarvatus
Usually in pairs, and the pairs are long-term. Their presence in numbers is a decent proxy for reef health because they feed directly on coral polyps.
Lutjanus kasmira
Forms the dense yellow schools that hang off Pigeon Island's coral heads. Reliable wide-angle subject at ten metres.
20–35 cm
Chromodoris spp.
Butterfly Rock routinely produces ten-plus species on a single tank. Toxic and advertising it — the colour is a warning, not decoration.
Spirobranchus giganteus
Bores into coral and the iron plates of the Irakkandy wreck. The spirals are feeding and breathing structures; wave a hand and every one on the hull vanishes at once.
What we will not do
No held-back hatchlings.
Hatcheries that keep hatchlings in tanks for daytime tourist releases exhaust the yolk reserve the animal needs to swim clear of the reef. Releases happen at first light, when they should.
No touching, riding or feeding.
Not turtles, not sharks, not rays. If a guide offers, they are not our guide.
No anchoring on coral.
Mooring buoys or a live boat. Every time, including when it costs us a dive.
No shark or ray products sold, served or sourced.
Including at any accommodation we book on your behalf.
No coral, shell or 'souvenir' sales.
Removing anything from a national park is illegal in Sri Lanka. We will tell you that before you find out at the airport.