March 9,2003

On 03/09/03 Vone Research continued its monitoring of the coral restoration project. We first dove site #26. This area is recovering well. The stabilized hard corals are looking healthy. Almost all of the sponge bases are regenerating except one which is totally dead. We found three hard corals that were not stabilized or marked. There are some soft corals still in need of stabilization. At this time they're still healthy. Next we dove site #28. The hard coral that we saw in this area that had been stabilized appeared to be healthy. There appeared to be a a slight problem with the stabilization of the soft corals, a few of them are leaning over, however they still looked healthy and one had broken free. There are still soft corals in this area that have not yet been stabilized. We found no barrel sponges that had been attached in either site.