Caribbean Coral Reef Conservation: Diving Deep with Marine Expert Denny Frazier

Do you love traveling to exotic locations to dive or snorkel?  Are you concerned about the health of our oceans and our coral reefs? Learn how you can get involved and make a difference in saving these precious ecosystems for future generations!

Join host and creator, Shannon Bednarova, as she explores the fascinating world of diving, coral conservation, and marine biology with dive master and marine conservationist, Denny Frazier. Discover his adventures, insights into coral health, and how everyone can contribute to ocean preservation.

Understand the Impact that human development, climate change and the offloading of ship ballast has on coral reefs

• Learn the difference between coral bleaching and SCTLD - Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, aka" Skittle D' 
• Learn what you can do to assist with Marine conservation and how to get involved
• Discover what research is being done to mitigate coral decimation worldwide
• Explore which oral restoration techniques are the most effective and new developments in transplantation

Helpful links:

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) - Coral Disease & Health Consortium

Home - Reef Renewal USA

Home - Coral Restoration Foundation

Coral Reef Alliance - Saving the World’s Coral Reefs

The Nature Conservancy: A World Where People & Nature Thrive

SEE THE SEA | Protect Marine Ecosystems—Get Involved       (Denny Frazier)

Carolina Dive Locker

Instagram: see-the-sea26 (for Denny Frazier's organization)

DISCLAIMER: All opinions, recommendations and experiences shared on this podcast are solely those of the creator and/or her guests.  Please do your own research and consult the appropriate professionals before making any decisions based on content shared on this show. 

Thank you for listening!  I welcome your feedback and suggestions or you simply let me know if you are enjoying the show. You can reach me at Shannon@ALadyWellTravelled.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hello and welcome to A Lady Well Traveled. I'm your host and creator, Shannon Bednarova, and I'm delighted that you've joined me. Today we're going to be interviewing a gentleman by the name of Denny Frazier. Denny is a dive instructor and a dive master who currently works at the Carolina Dive Locker in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. And that's where we're recording today. So I want to give a shout out to the owner, Jeff Edenberg. And Carolina Dive Locker is located at 1303 Ben Sawyer in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. If you're a diver, even if you're a snorkeler and you need equipment, just check them out. So, Denny, would you please say hello to everybody that's listening today?

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Hello, everybody out there. And I want to thank you for tuning in to Shannon's podcast. And thank you for having me on. Absolutely. I think this is going to be a blast. We're going to have a great time.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah. The first time I met Denny uh came in because I was going to be going scuba diving after a long reprieve, after having had a boating accident where I got chopped up in a propeller. And hey, I can still play the violin. So that's a good thing. But Denny helped me pick out a new snorkel, and he was so gracious and kind talking to me about replenishing coral. And I said, Hey, I really need to have you on my podcast. So here we are. Denny, you've led a very, very storied life. You've traveled all over the world for work, for your volunteerism, and for your diving. You're also a dive photographer, which is something that's really wonderful. Would you tell our audience briefly about your background, where you're from, your career path, and just some fun things about you like you like pina coladas and walking in the rain and all that?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yes, I do like pina coladas, but actually I prefer a good margarita.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

And in terms of being chopped up, it looked like you pulled all your pieces together. So I'm glad that you are still mobile in getting around.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Amen to that. God is good.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Yeah. Well, I better make this brief because I've been on the planet for a while. At any rate, my interest in basically outdoors and nature really started as a young man. I joined the Air Force when I was 19, became a survival sear instructor. And so for 10 years, I walked around the woods of the Pacific Northwest, but traveled in many different biomes from the tropics to the Arctic. And I ended up getting a degree in biology chemistry for secondary education. Never really fulfilled that because I had an opportunity to become an officer in the Air Force and then traveled the world for the next 10 years and uh eventually ended up in the Philippines. And while I was in the Philippines, I had an opportunity to learn how to dive. We'll talk a little bit more about that later on. Since then, I have traveled quite extensively. Bonair was my favorite go-to place, but my wife and I have traveled to the Maldives, Egypt, Philippines, Indonesia, and multiple places throughout the Caribbean. And so with that, and then having a love of nature, then photography came very naturally. I had an opportunity to learn some photography while in Bonair, and then really refined that when I took a trip to Indonesia and the Philippines.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

That's awesome. You said that when you were in the Philippines with the Air Force, you got into diving. We all have this story about how I started diving. You got certified in the Philippines. Tell me how that evolved.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Well, I had an office looking over the South China Sea. Oh, wow. And just imagine this very iconic place with palm trees. You could hear the ocean crashing against the coral. I mean, we were right on the edge of a looking out over the South China Sea. To the north, to the west, and to the south was nothing but ocean. Every every place I looked. And because of some political unrest at that time, we were restricted to base. However, I found out that they were going to have a scuba class. And if I left the shore of the base and returned back to the base, then I would be able to get off base and go dive. And then I had a friend, of course, that everybody has a dive friend that says you absolutely got to do this. And so Mike was that friend that strongly encouraged me to take the class. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

So when did you decide, hey, I'm pretty good at all this? I'm gonna learn how to teach others and become an instructor and a master.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Well, that was a little longer route. Okay. Um, so as I was in the Philippines, I had an opportunity to to base basically eat, sleep, and dive. And and I focused on that. And so after a year, I had over 100 dives, and then I had worked with this one dive instructor who needed a dive master and basically said, if you help me out, I can help you become a dive master. And so we did. And that was a terrific experience.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

And led me to be able to dive down in the Verde Straits near Batangas and see some of the most incredible diving that the Philippines had to offer.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Wow, that's so cool. Did your love of diving come first? And then you were like, I have to learn how to take pictures of all of this groovy stuff I'm seeing? Or were you already somewhat of a photographer or a great photographer and you said, I'm taking this underwater?

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Well, I'll never claim to be a great photographer. Oh, come on. I make some really terrific images. Okay. Um, and I'm getting a little more accomplished as I do that. But what actually happened was I grew up watching Jock Cousin. Oh, of course. We all the underwater world. And I just felt like I needed to capture that to be able to share with others. And because I had already been uh a sear instructor, but during that time, um, I started teaching a lot of outdoor adventurous activities like river rafting, kayaking, canoeing, worked with the scouts extensively. And being an educator, I wanted to be able to talk about and get people to connect with what it was that I was doing. So much so, I think my family got tired of seeing fish pictures and wanted to see pictures of these exotic locations that I was going in. That was the impetus. Okay. Don't you find it really hard to connect with with folks that haven't had the experience to get underwater and you try to explain to them what it was like to experience that school of hammerheads or those nurse sharks or the octopus that was crawling along the bottom and feeding? It's it's just really hard because those are not common experiences for for our families and friends.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Right. And having a sea lion come right up to your mask, this gigantic 600-pound creature that's really like a puppy dog in the ocean, or snorkeling or scuba diving along and just being in a it's hard to call sea turtles a herd, but when you've got like six or seven of them right there, it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Well, and the other thing I love about the ocean is that we get away from this concrete world that we live in, and we're in some other creature's universe.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

And we are truly visiting. I mean, we we have to be supported by scuba equipment. Right. And if you're adventurous and if you end up swimming next to a whale shark, you just realize we're not the biggest creature in the world.

unknown 8:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

We're really at the mercy of those sea creatures, aren't we? Absolutely. Let me ask you a little about your scuba shop experience. You're an expert at scuba equipment repair. And was that something that you picked up by virtue of diving so much, or was it something that you wanted to learn? And you taught yourself how to do it with like YouTube videos or just through experience?

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, that was well, just going back to my background, okay, being seer worker and then trying to always be in the position where you could support yourself and then diving with scuba equipment at these foreign locations where many times there wasn't a scuba shop. I just had a real interest in what I might be able to do in terms of repairing my equipment and continuing to to work. I basically started hanging out at um a scuba shop that had burnt down, unfortunately, here in Charleston. Charleston scuba with a fellow by the name of Gary Finka. And Gary, if you're listening out there, thank you for everything you've you've done to help me. But uh he took the time to show me how to repair my own equipment. And so at the bench we were working on repairing it. But if you're not affiliated with the scuba shop, you can't buy the service kits because they only sell the service kits to the shops that actually carry that equipment. When I had an opportunity to move over to Carolina Dive Locker, they had a need for someone to do servicing of equipment, and then Jeff was gracious enough to sign me up for some courses. So I learned how to repair Sherwood regulators online, taking e-learning classes. And then I took uh the classes through Scuba Pro, and that was that was directed online, but everybody was rebuilding a regulator online with an instructor giving us feedback and then went to DEMA, the Dive Equipment Manufacturing Association Conference, and actually went to a class there to learn how to rebuild Mara's equipment, and so it continues. And did the same for OTS masks, and we're looking forward to bringing on aqualung here in the shop. Very nice, and hopefully, in not the too distant future, we hope to also uh be repairing um atomic and uh that fleet of equipment as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Okay, well, that's great news. Um, my brother is a retired firefighter, but also dove for Henrico County and was on the MERT team. What do live fighter teams and police departments have to do? Are they given special dispensation and given those kids, or do they have to bring everything to the dive shop too?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

No, um uh they're they're going to need to have some kind of a certified technician. It really depends. For example, I know that uh the South Carolina aquarium, they do have a service deck that will take care of their equipment. On some dive teams, they will have equipment people, but generally, like we will have many of the police departments and firefighter teams bring their equipment in for annual servicing here at our shop.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Thank you for clarifying that.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Well, and uh part of that is is you also need to have recurring training to keep up with that, but also specialized tools in order to work on that.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I can imagine they're not exactly the same thing that you use to fix your fire truck or let's get into you becoming involved in working with coral restoration, and that's specifically in Bonair. It tell our audience how you got involved, what was the impetus for that?

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Well, after diving around the world and having been diving since 1990, I've been able to see how the climate has had an impact with coral bleaching, with marine heat waves that have definitely had a major impact. And as the coral begins to bleach, if the water stays warm enough for a long enough period of time, then the microorganisms that help the coral to survive leave that coral, and then the coral will eventually die off. And you'll see these coral barrens where it's just nothing but white staghorn coral. And uh over time those will begin to break down. And since the coral is a keystone species, then you don't have the smaller fish, then you don't have the snappers and groupers, and then the next thing you know, it's just very small fish that are algae eaters eating around the edges, and it becomes a lot less vibrant. I also listened to a TED talk that was given by Sylvia Earle, one of my absolute most favorite people in the world. And Sylvia Earl, an oceanographer, terrific marine biologist, she started like three submersible companies in the world that in her TED talk, she had one ask as she was receiving this award, and that was that we would take a portion of the ocean and set it aside for marine protected areas. And then she uh had an ask for everyone go out there, talk, talk to your congressman, um, get involved. If you have social media platforms, start holding this up that we really need to protect the oceans, and we could do that if we were able to set aside somewhere between 10 to 30 percent of the ocean for restoration purpose purposes. And uh so when I heard that because of the climate changes that were coming, that somewhere near uh 2030, 90% of the coral reefs could disappear on the planet as one of our tipping points. Wow. Then I had to get out and see it for myself. And once I started seeing it, and seeing is believing, then I knew that I needed to do something. I I just felt compelled. I mean, I love nature, being in nature. Coral reefs only make up somewhere between like 0.1 to 0.2 percent of the ocean, but yet are so vital and critical for communities.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Absolutely. I know that you also had mentioned the disease that's affecting the coral called stony coral tissue loss disease.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Isn't that a mouthful? Well, I got a bit of venereal disease. So working with uh sterile the uh coral conservationists, they uh have abbreviated it and they call it Skittle D. Skittle D. I like that. So like Skittled, only with a D at the end. So we can just refer to it as Skittle D.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

I did some research and I found some data provided by Noah. By the way, you can easily find this stuff on the internet. Skittle D is a highly infectious waterborne pathogen that causes rapid tissue loss and high mortality rates in over 20 species of hard corals throughout Florida and the Caribbean. And it's identified by white lesions, a bear skeleton, it spreads rapidly and it can kill total colonies in weeks. Denny, is this the same thing as coral bleaching? And if it's not, how are the two different?

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Okay, I'm glad you asked that. And they are different processes altogether.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Please explain for us.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

So let's let's start with coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is going to happen when water temperatures rise typically one to two centigrade. That's probably three to five degrees Fahrenheit. And what happens is there is a symbiotic photoplankton that the coral will bring into its tissues in order to help it with energy production. And as a matter of fact, these phytoplankton are photosynthetic organisms that will convert materials that they collect in the seawater into carbohydrates that the corals use. And corals, particularly thinking of the branching corals, the like elkhorn coral and staghorn coral, they get up to 80% of their energy through this phytoplankton. Okay. Well, when the temperature gets that high, then they're continuing to produce oxygen and sugars and whatnot. But the oxygen content builds up so much it becomes an irritant to the coral. And the coral goes, I just can't handle this. And it ejects this photoplankton back into the water column. Coral can survive maybe two to four weeks, depending upon the species without this uh mech uh organism that lives within their tissue. But if we have marine heat waves like what Bon Air had experienced in 2023 and 24, and somewhat in 2025, then the corals really begin to suffer greatly. And uh depending upon where the coral's at and the water temperature, then you'll see these massive die-offs of the uh branching corals, particularly. And the elkhorn coral throughout the Florida Keys, Bahamas, and all the way down the Windward Islands took a very major hit this year. So how that is different from the stony coral soft tissue disease or Skittle D. Skittle D. Skittle D is that this is a bacterial infection or maybe even a viral infection, but they're thinking that it might be a combination. What we'll see many times uh in biology is that you might end up with an initial bacterial infection, which sets the stage for another opportunistic infection to come in.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

And so this was first identified um in Miami. And weren't you gonna ask me about chip malysis? I am, that's coming up. Let's go there.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Right, let's go there then. Okay, and then I'll tell the rest of the story. Um, because they are looking at the reasons why this disease spreads so rapidly. And it spreads through the water and direct contact between the colonies, but then also potentially through contaminated ballast from ships, the water that's offloaded by ships that travels around the world all the time. The question I have for Denny is how can we resolve that issue, offloading contaminated ballast? Because ships have been doing that ever since man has been going on the high seas. What do we do about this potentially contaminated ballast?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna pick it up just a little bit before that. Where Skittle D first was identified was basically right off of Miami. Miami is one of the busiest shipping ports on the East Coast. Uh it it's either the first or the second highest used container ship ports in the nation.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

And cruise ships, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

And many people don't realize that about Miami, how big that port actually is. And so that's where the thought process came in. Maybe this was coming from the ballast of ships. Well, you can imagine that if you have a ship that might be coming out of the Balkans or maybe out of the Mediterranean or coming from the Indo-Pacific. I mean, we have so much transcommunication across our oceans. Of course. So that they'll sit lower in the water column so that their propulsion systems are more effective and they're able to offset waves and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Cavitation.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

As they become into ports, then they will offload their ballasts because they need to raise the bottom of the ships so they could come into shipping canals in order to come into ports to be offloaded. We even see that here in South Carolina is we see the ships coming underneath the Ravenel Bridge that they're sitting high in the water. The issue is if they are offloading that in areas like Biscayne Bay that might be more contained, or even Charleston Harbor, which is even more contained, then whatever is in that water can mix with our water columns and hence contaminate. And if you think a little bit like it, it could be like COVID. Maybe the origin was in China, and the next thing we know it's in Seattle and then San Francisco and down in LA. And all these lines of communications are going to be sources of this happening. So many places will have requirements for ships to offload their ballasts before they enter into these more contained water columns. What they're doing in the maritime community, I'm not totally familiar with, but I know that these practices have been put in place.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Right. And water moves, that's the thing. There are columns and currents everywhere. So if you offload your ballast, let's say in international waters twelve miles off the coast, that water can easily move into the bay or into the harbor in just a matter of

SPEAKER_02 22:00

The thinking there is the solution to pollution is dilution. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

And that's has always been parts per gazillion trillion disease as being dumping ground.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Yes. But uh yeah, it is of concern. But the reason why I asked you to go there is because it helps to explain the movement of the stony coral disease. Because it it went from Miami, the Florida Keys, and then it went down through the Bahamas. Right. And then because of the circular current that we have within the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, then the next thing we know it's going down the Windward Island and then, you know, from Barbados, from what uh British Virgin Islands down into Marquesa, uh St. Lucius, down Grenada, and then finally made its way to Bonaire. However, that track is very linear there, but we also had an outbreak that happened off of the coast of Panama. Oh, okay. And also made it its way into Jamaica and then also the Cayman Islands.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Like Boca del Toro area? Yeah. Well, I didn't know that. So really interesting. They apply antibiotic pastes to the coral to treat this disease. Have you ever done any work applying any of the antibiotic pastes? Or are you only involved in replenishment activities?

SPEAKER_02 23:26

No, I I didn't have an opportunity to apply the antibiotics, but this disease is so contagious that in order to apply the antibiotic in order to save a reef, it would be very limited nature. And I think it had more of a research component by being able to apply the antibiotic to it, then they knew that there was uh a bacterial component versus like everybody going around with paintbrushes painting all the coral with antibiotics.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

I mean, but it just biology doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And you can't just dump buckets of antibiotics in the ocean and expect that to go well.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

As part of the coral restoration, what the biologists are doing, they're identifying those particular stony corals. And when we talk about stony corals, what we're talking about are brain corals and star corals, mountainous star corals. These are going to be very slow growing. They're going to be mounded kind of corals or the big round corals that you might think about seeing in the bottom. Some of these were thousands of years old when they died off. But there are survivors. And then the question is, why are these surviving? And when you get into the genetic makeup and try to isolate out the genes that might be responsible for it, then that's a whole nother field of study. But what they're doing is they're taking those small corals and then they're going to cut them up. And they're actually going to take like a rock saw and cut these corals into smaller pieces and mount them on tiles. Now, in the process of actually cutting them, they are actually stimulating growth.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Because it turns out that these corals are snapping and cracking all the time.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

You can hear them underwater all the time. If it's not parrot fish.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

And so corals react just like our bones do. When you break them, it stimulates growth. They're able to stimulate growth and then grow these in like laboratories where they're able to have very controlled conditions until they get to the point to where they could go out and plant them on the reef. Normally, these corals are going to be growing, it might start out about the size of a nickel, and over about five years, it might be the size of a quarter, or maybe even the the size of a small apple. But it's going to take six months' time. So we need to get started on it and get started on it now. There's some exciting news that folks are looking into, and it's called the um technique where they're actually going to take spicer genes and they're actually going to transplant when they can identify what those genes are to help fight the Skittle D into new coral that's propagating. The other exciting research that they're doing is when they can find these coral colonies that have survived, then they'll go out and collect the uh gamete from it and grow those also in the lab. Right. And I had an opportunity to see that was visiting the reef coral restoration in Bonair, the reef renewal and Bonair. Actually, able to go in their lab. And they had just had uh some of these gametes that had propagated and were beginning to lay down on these small ceramic placards that they had.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

That were in the shape of a star, and you could actually see it under a microscope, and it looked like a little tiny volcano as they were laying down the calcium. And when you fluoresce it with a fluorescent light and looked at it with specialized glasses, you could see a coral polyp beginning its life. And it was so cool. That is cool. And then they'll grow those in the lab initially or in situ, where they're going to take those out and plant them on the coral reef. And they'll they're doing experiments to find out what conditions are working best to be able to do this.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

That's at least encouraging to know. Have they been able to find anything in the lab that's a natural antidote or a biological phagocyte that can eat the virus or the bacteria? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

That research that you're asking is continuing to go on. They probably have identified a whole group of what they call road bacterial that is kind of responsible for that, being able to get down to the specific species and to understand under what conditions they flourish or they can be diminished. The problem is trying to apply an antidote in water that is always moving is a challenge. So that's the reason why most of the most exciting research is being done through asexual promulgation, which is the cutting and then the sexual promulation, which is collecting the gametes. So the primary organizations leading the research on the sexual promulgation for the heat tolerant corals in the Caribbean is called Sea Corps International. And it stands for sexual coral reproduction. And it's a collaboration with a group called Femor out of a Dominican Republic and then Cambia out of Curacao. And they use this coral seeding technique. Yeah. And it's really pretty cool because as I was explaining in the lab, once they get these corals to begin to grow on these stars, then they will actually transplant them onto what looks like a blue raft. And the raft has a floor on it, and they're able to put these on the floor, and it is screened so it will get the light coming through this blue filter, which allows it to grow very rapidly, but also protects it against overheating until they can establish this coral. And then they can take that and transplant it. Oh cool. Okay. But it's a really cool organization. And that's very good. Sure. Found out about this and then found out that Bonair actually had the reef renewal program that they had started. They'd brought that in from Florida and that I was able to go and take a class on actually how to do this.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah. That is so neat. The NOAA site said that coastal development and human activity are also linked to the increased spread of this disease. And you and I both know, living here in South Carolina, that we're not going to stop coastal development. That's never going to happen. I think anywhere there's water, there's going to be people. Of course, maybe we can reduce fertilizer runoff in the oceans, other pollutants that we dump in the ocean. But we talk about the oceans are really the world's largest toilet. And there are a lot of people who feel like, oh, what difference does it make? It's going to clean itself anyway. So if the United States and maybe a few other countries are the only ones that are involved in doing something, how do we get everyone around the world to start taking action and cleaning up their acts? Okay. A lot to unpack.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

So to begin with, you know, the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts here in the United States that were initiated uh many years ago really have addressed quite a few of these issues. One of the big issues that's still remaining is the amount of phosphates and nitrates that are being flushed down the Mississippi River, which has led to a huge dead zone that basically goes from Louisiana to Texas and comes and goes each year as we have runoff off of these lands and as the water begins to warm up. And what happens is that these nitrates and phosphates give rise to rapid bacterial growth within the water column. And then as these organisms begin to consume all the other nutrients within the water and deplete the oxygen, then these organisms drop out of the water. We have very little oxygenated water. And so fish and crustaceans like shrimp have a very difficult time. And so this is definitely being monitored or was being monitored by NOAA. And what they're looking at in the future, and I'm not as familiar about this, but changing our farming practices to more regenerative farming practices. And we're starting to see it already in the Midwest, where it was corn, corn, corn, corn, corn, or dirt. Right. Well, now they're starting to have either cover crops or other crops that are able to come in to help replenish the soil, add more nitrates back to the soil with legumes, you know, so lentils, those kinds of things. And then those crops can be plowed under. And then that helps to make dirt into soil, which has living organisms in it that requires less of these chemical nutrients. So that's that's kind of some exciting things that are happening. And around the world, you're seeing the same emphasis throughout Europe. There is a concern in the Indonesia and other places where they're having big oil palms, plantations that have been planted, and that's more of siltation where you have a lot of runoff, and then this will just cover the corals and soft case. The mangroves act as a natural filter system for a lot of the reefs and that's so when you talk about my mangroves, you know, how important they are in terms of being that filtation, but when you have coastal development and you have the reduction of mangroves, that has led to some problems.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

But there is um program to really work on adding those mangroves back to those natural areas where they're at. Literally, there was a an organization that has donated a billion dollars to this particular project, and you're starting to see replenishment throughout uh the Indian Ocean in the Indo-Pacific. And so that's that's great to see that happening.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Absolutely. And you've talked about high water temperatures, thermal stress being a big deal for this spread of this disease. So tell us about the exciting new developments in the heat-resistant corals that are being worked on and that can be planted in the damaged reef systems.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Oh my goodness. And this research is again happening throughout the world. Right. The Bott Institute in Florida has done a tremendous amount of work in this particular area area, as CORE also has done. The great news is is that we have identified species that look to be more heat resistant. Okay. The other good news is that where we talk about 90% of the corals disappearing, possibly within this decade because of heat stress, there are areas on the planet that we know that tend to be more resistant. And in the Indo-Pacific, you have cold upwelling waters that come in that help cool some of the corals. The thought process is that in these particular areas that you're going to have corals that will hang on. And then as we're able to sort this out and to be able to transplant it. The other great thing is that we're beginning to see companies move from academic institutes because with limited funding and doing primary research, they're not really designed in order to upscale this by 10 times and go out to plan it. Right. But but there are commercial companies now that are being able to contract with governments and other organizations to be able to commercialize this and to go out and to do wide-scale uh transplanting on corals. That's a pretty cool decision.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

That is. That's wonderful. So if I'm a diver, a snorkeler, a swimmer, or just somebody who doves our oceans and marine life, how can I get involved and make a difference?

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Well, first, um I think we all need to be aware of the appropriate use of sunscreen. Sure. Because we know that those sunscreens that have benzene in them are going to be detrimental to corals. In these areas, you know, let's make sure that we're using the appropriate sunscreen for where we're going. In heaven's sakes, do use sunscreen. My goodness. Of course. Living in the south. I I have a dermatology appointment twice a year because I'm in the sun all the time and and they've carved plenty off of me. Next, be aware of the plastics that might be out there. Walking around, and if you do see um some stuff that you can pick up, uh participate in beach cleanups. I participated during Earth Day for a couple of beach cleanups here in uh South Carolina, working uh with the uh Charleston Waterkeepers. Just a terrific organization to do a shout out. All right. The other thing is is that be involved with your local communities in terms of, for example, being involved with Charleston Waterkeepers. I'm helping with uh oyster restoration here in the low country that's helping to clean up our uh coastal waters. Yeah. And look in your own communities to see what other organizations there's waterkeepers all throughout the the country. Another great organization is surf riders that uh you might be able to get involved with. They do tremendous work. If you're a scuba diver, there are a classes, had a class that you can take on uh coral uh restoration and then SSI courses on coral identification that also will cover a lot of the material we talked about here today.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Ice, I love that. What if I am just a person who's like, gee, I'd like to give a financial donation to one of these organizations that were is working to combat these diseases or to support the research. Do you know of any organizations that are capable of taking financial donations?

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Yes, I do. The Coral Alliance is a good one. Coral Restoration Foundation is another good organization. We've mentioned Reef Renewal. Okay. So the uh Coral Alliance, I believe, is a Florida-based is the uh Coral Foundation.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

So that's wonderful news to have as well. And if our listeners are interested in learning how to dive or upgrade their diving skills, or they want to take a diving trip with you to an exotic location around the world, where can they find you locally?

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Well, you can find me at Carolina Dive Locker at 1303 Ben Sawyer Boulevard here in Mount Pleasant. And uh, we are a full service shop. Um, and we would invite you to come visit if you're a scuba diver. We have a wide uh range of equipment, full service, meaning that we can service your equipment. I'm only one of three service technicians here. So, and if you need a quick turnaround, uh let us know. We can see what we can do for you. But let's not forget that we also have opportunities for travel to locations such as Rotan, been to the Cooper Roads, been to British Virgin Islands, look us up at uh CarolinadiveLogger.com or drop by the shop and have a conversation with us, or you can contact us eight four eight euros one five zero zero. And one more time. That would be eight four eight euros one five zero zero. My website, the work I'm doing in terms of marine conservation is see the c S-E-E-T-H-E, hyphen, s e a dot com. So see the C. And the thought is is if I can see it, I can relate to it. If I can relate to it, I can fall in love with it. If I can fall in love with it, I can protect it.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

That's great. I want to thank Denny for being a fantastic guest today on our show. And the great news is that I'm gonna have Denny back off to talk about his favorite diving locations around the world and share with all of you who like to dive and perhaps just snorkel even because I know there are divers out there who used to love to dive, and for whatever health reasons, they can't dive anymore, but they can snorkel. Then also Denny is going to talk about some of his top travel hacks from his time as a SEER instructor. And if you don't know what SEER means, that's survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. And he's gonna talk about things that he really wouldn't leave home without when he's traveling. Denny, it's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Well, great. It's been great uh talking with you and uh enjoy connecting with your audience.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Fantastic. For those of you who have joined us, thank you so much. As always, you can reach out to me at Shannon at a lady well traveled. That's Shannon at a lady well traveled with two L's in traveled. And I'd love to know what you think about the show. If you have any questions for Denny, please reach out to him at his website, contact Carolina Dive Blocker. Again, we're so appreciative of them letting us record here today, and would encourage you to check out their website and all the great things that they have to offer. And as always, I just want to remind you that God created this big, beautiful world out there just for you. All you need to do is get out there and see it. So until next time, bye-bye.