10-10-10

This past weekend TISIRI participated in a Jacksonville Reef Research Team reef mapping project. See the video below for the story of the project. (post is continued below the pictures)

The artificial reef is located in the NSS reef area (offshore Jacksonville) and consist of a placement of concrete that has been submerged for over 20 years.

To map the reef area the JRRT divers first determined a reference location in which they placed a benchmark. A benchmark is fixed structure that is used as a reference point for mapping efforts. In our case a tire filled with concrete, weighing over 120lbs, was placed inside a piece of submerged culvert pipe. A PVC pipe attachment, sticking vertically out of the tire, allowed a place to attach measuring tapes. The Benchmark established, diver teams attached measure reels to the benchmark and swam a distance away on a given compass heading. These swim patterns we refer to as radials. Divers made note of any structure they came across and created a drawing of the material position based on its location to the units on the tape measure. Several radial swims were completed by diver teams to get an accurate map.

TISIRI Divers participated in the mapping efforts as well as filmed and photographed the events. General observations and fish abundances were observed while Scuba diving the Jacksonville artificial reef site.

Thanks to two phenomenal days of offshore weather and ambitious divers, the JRRT mapping project was successful. Now that mapping is complete, the divers in this project just might know where the best spot is to drop your fishing line!!

Endeavors like this Jacksonville Reef Research Team project are important to the continued success of artificial reef efforts. We at TISIRI appreciate the JRRT’s efforts are glad to participate in such projects with them.