Discover and Join Sandals’ Coral Gardening Efforts

Your ears hear the magical phrases on the entrance: Welcome to Sandals. Welcome residence. Your eyes see gloriously unstated greetings out again: Welcome to the Caribbean. Welcome to essentially the most stunning ocean on Earth.

Come nearer. Step previous the pool, throughout the feathery-soft seaside, and maintain strolling into the consolation of the prettiest water you’ve ever seen. On the floor, it’s turquoise, emerald, and shades of blue you didn’t know existed.

Oh, you simply wait. You haven’t seen essentially the most spectacular sights underneath the floor but. Lots of the 20,000 individuals who work at Sandals Resorts throughout the Caribbean have seen them. They grew up on this water, swimming, fishing, and diving. They perceive how the ocean and its reefs join individuals to the islands, to the atmosphere, and to life.

It is part of each one that calls the Caribbean “residence.”

And now, a timeless legacy for Sandals company who take part in Reef Rescue and Coral Nursery Transplanting dives. These PADI experiences are curated for Sandals.

Consider it. What number of vacationers can legitimately say they established a residing, respiration legacy within the Caribbean Sea, whereas on trip? It is one factor to soak within the sea and take photos of it, however the affection reaches a deeper stage if you find yourself really within the sea for the aim of constructing it more healthy and prettier for generations to come back.

But that is precisely what Sandals company are doing on 5 Caribbean islands: Saint Lucia, Bahamas, Curaçao, Grenada, and Jamaica. By giving a number of hours of trip time to take part in unique coral restoration applications, they’re going residence with one of the vital partaking first traces to a journey story you’ll be able to think about: I turned a coral gardener within the Caribbean Sea.

The story of a Sandals coral gardener is a narrative that can dwell past dinner discuss and into perpetuity. Each piece of planted coral will develop right into a more healthy habitat for marine life. It would shield coastlines and change into a part of the underwater attract of the Caribbean.

Sandals company can say, “I had a hand in that.”

“The well being of the Caribbean begins with our ocean,” says Sandals Resorts Worldwide Government Chairman Adam Stewart. “And there’s no higher technique to make a distinction than by inviting Sandals company to be proactive individuals.”

Eventually depend, Sandals company and native underwater gardeners have collaborated to transplant over 37,000 coral fragments by way of applications led by the Sandals Basis and its companions. Many company have arrived at Sandals as novice divers, taken coral restoration speciality programs, and then immersed themselves into an unforgettable gardening expertise.

So come nearer. Discover the reefs turning into extra vibrant, the fish turning into extra plentiful, and communities turning into extra self-sustainable. Dive into this perpetual cycle of Caribbean goodness. And whilst you’re at it, construct an ever-growing legacy within the ocean.

Saint Lucia

Welcome to the island the place the coral nursery transplanting program involving Sandals company began. Since 2018, greater than 16,000 coral fragments have been outplanted simply round Saint Lucia. The advantages are not possible to calculate.

“To maximise the influence of this program, we depend on the participation of Sandals company,” says Newton Eristhee, operations director of the Middle for Livelihoods, Ecosystems, Power, Adaptation, and Resilience (CLEAR).

Company from all three Sandals resorts on the island — Sandals Halcyon, Sandals Regency La Toc, and Sandals Grande Saint Lucian — study restoration methods by way of the Coral Nursery Transplanting Specialty, a PADI distinctive specialty. Then, collectively, all of them enter the ocean to get their arms moist within the gardens.

“By serving to us improve the reefs,” Eristhee says, “Sandals company are serving to to boost lives within the Caribbean.”

The enhancing has no finish as a result of the first-hand expertise powers a cycle often known as a “sustainable financing mechanism.” All funds return into the coral gardening program, permitting the identical licensed divers who prepare Sandals company to coach others in Saint Lucia. Coral gardening abilities then broaden to cowl extra of the island and ocean. Already, there’s a coral nursery as far south as the enduring Pitons and quickly divers in Saint Lucia will launch a Snorkel Path to showcase how coral fragments transplanted by Sandals company have flourished into magnificent fashions of well being.

The Bahamas

Colourful reefs have introduced notoriety to The Bahamas for hundreds of years, however younger forests of coral sprouting close to Sandals Royal Bahamian are completely different, these sit alongside coral nursery bushes off the resort’s coast. They’re a spectacle-in-progress and the results of a brand new Reef Rescue Community website from the Perry Institute for Marine Sciences, supported by the Sandals Basis and managed by the lads and ladies of the Sandals Royal Bahamian water sports activities staff.

Resort company can descend into the ocean alongside members of Sandals’ PADI-trained staff and take the brand new Reef Rescue Diver Specialty Course. Through the dives, company first discover ways to preserve coral nurseries earlier than really transplanting corals from nursery to reef.

The primary bushes within the nursery, established barely a yr in the past, are already thriving with lots of of elkhorn and staghorn coral fragments. Because the fragments develop, so does the well-being of the ocean and the legacies of Sandals company who now have a wholly new place to marvel — completely celebrating the 2025 United Nation’s World Oceans Day theme, Marvel: Sustaining What Sustains Us.

Curaçao

With over 70 dive websites spanning the coast of Curaçao, there’s infinite magnificence to discover, and now, due to the Sandals Basis, to protect and shield. The Sandals Royal Curaçao dive store staff and the Sandals Basis are collaborating with the BRANCH Coral Basis and have already distributed 5 coral bushes, every of them budding with 80 fragments of staghorn coral. The objective is to outplant 300 fragments each six months till they cowl 100 sq. meters of reef.

Resort dive staff members will probably be caretakers of the coral fragements, which is able to finally equip them to information resort company in coral gardening methods. It’s necessary to notice that the brand new coral will develop unencumbered, thanks largely to the Future Goals program. The venture, which removes plastic particles from the ocean and its shores, is repurposed into soccer objectives for Curaçao’s faculties making and distributing over 60 objectives over the past three years.

Grenada

Extra beautification is actively underway on the southern finish of the Caribbean Ocean, the place individuals residing close to [Grenada’s]https://www.sandals.com/grenada/) seashores have gotten coral-gardening ambassadors. Their consciousness and abilities had been elevated when the Sandals Basis teamed up with the Grenada Coral Reef Basis to supply much-needed coral gardening gear.

“Households have lived right here for generations, however eyes are simply now being opened to the generational significance of reef restoration,” says Deleon Forrester of the Sandals Basis. “Sharing this follow with our neighbors throughout the island has made all of the distinction, they’ve one thing crucial: group belief. That’s how we are able to get issues finished.”

Jamaica

While you come to the unique residence of Sandals: Jamaica 1000’s of coral fragments are in some stage of development off the coast of Boscobel to the north and Whitehouse to the south. The quantity is consistently rising as a result of divers from the encircling communities are actively gardening on daily basis.

The reefs have undergone a miraculous transformation for the reason that Sandals Basis appealed to fishermen in these areas to be the change makers by sharing the advantages of treating the reef as a part of a fish sanctuary.

“Earlier than the inspiration got here, the reef was beginning to lose its sparkle” says a fisherman, Terrell, who would change into a full-time Sandals Basis ambassador. “They listened to our considerations as fishermen.”

The water at Boscobel and Whitehouse is now beaming with life.

“It’s due to Sandals,” Terrell says.

And that takes us again to the place the perfect trip ever continues. You’ve spent a morning tending a coral backyard. You’ve made the ocean more healthy. After which, happier than you’ve ever been on a visit, you come to your suite with an suave view of the ocean and think about these magical phrases once more: Welcome to the Caribbean.