Reef Dive Video Update – August 2011

Divers Don Don and Thad took a dive down to the Playa Hermosa Artificial Reef Project in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.  The fish and marine life are abounding. Also, The new steel reinforced condo design seems to be the ideal choice for underwater building. Our old structures are much more susceptible to being knocked over by fisherman’s anchors. The new prototype hasn’t moved or shifted since it was installed. The reef project is as beautiful as ever!

New CondoFish Video Documentary

Boomers Offshore created an outstanding video documenting the progress of the Playa Hermosa Artifical Reef Project over the last year.  In addition, the video emphasizes the need for project such as this and talks about the future of the project.

Be Sure and check out the Boomers Offshore for more info about life and adventure in Costa Rica. Thanks Andy for your support and excellent video skills!

March 2011 – An Amazing Month For the Project

This March has been absolutely amazing.  The structures and surrounding seafloor have been amassing biological value by the month.  Sightings of Lobsters, crabs, octopus, conch shells, southern sting rays, and more and more varieties fish have become commonplace.  We hope that local dive shops will begin viewing Condofish as more than a project, but as an attraction as well.

Marine biologist from the University in San Jose have now taken an interest and offered their help.(which we will expound on in a following post) The Costa Rica fishing authority have also given us good news and authorized us to expand greatly.  In addition, the Condofish team just placed their first new steel reinforced structure on the seafloor.  Anchors and fishing nets dropped by fishermen who ignore the government sanctioned buoys will no longer be an issue. Whoo Hoo!

Here are some pictures from the last dive.

New reef Design with submarine lifting and lowering device sitting in the center.

Stay tuned for an informative video

What to Do?….. Careless Fishermen

After putting up 4 buoys marking off the project in a square above the water and building a border around the entire project underwater, fishermen still continue to do damage to our project.   We have no issue with the casual sport fisherman or the motivated spear-fisher, but when fishermen drop their nets and drag them across a government sanctioned project and destroy our artificial reef units it’s totally unacceptable.  Last week we had to rebuild a unit that was destroyed by a fishing net that was caught and pulled a structure apart.  It seems that every month or so we’re cleaning up after irresponsible fishermen dragging their gear straight through the project.

We are working to build new, stronger, and more reinforced structures, but it’s unbelievable that fishermen are still dropping their nets in the protected zone.  This is MINAE protected zone. If you see or know anyone that uses the CondoFish area to drop nets or anchors…….tell them the government is watching them and that what they’re doing is bad for the Playa Hermosa community and the fish population in the bay.

We are helping to increase the fish population in the area!  Why slow CondoFish down?

.

Who is MINAE?

“As a resource with enormous potential, the biodiversity in Costa Rica plays an instrumental role in the country’s development. As compared to the other tropical regions in the world, this tiny Latin American

New Life in The Reef 2011

With the addition of the chunk of the Pekin Star shipwreck and over 9 months of growth on the calcium rich concrete blocks, the Playa Hermosa Artificial Reef Project is teeming with life.  We’ve been spotting numerous rays, eels, crabs, conch, oysters, and multitude of different varieties of tropical fish all around and in the structures.   Each block structure is covered with calcium based organisms and plants.  It seems that one day it become a solid living entity.  Rene even spotted a lobster underneath the shipwreck, meanwhile I had a baby octopus latching onto my hand while working on one of the condos.  It’s been quite a fun last few weeks.

See the photos below to get an idea of all the fun we have at the reef project.  Visibility was not very good this day but we still managed to get some good pictures.

2010 in Review – Not Bad for 6 Months.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how the Condofish blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 8,400 times in 2010. That’s about 20 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 22 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 245 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 84mb. That’s about 5 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was July 23rd with 481 views. The most popular post that day was Welcome.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were condofish.com, facebook.com, instructables.com, playahermosabeach.org, and stumbleupon.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for condofish, artificial reef, condofish.com, benthic zone, and lise lacaille costa rica.

Attractions in 2010

Thank You for Your Support Hotel El Velero

A big reef thank you to Hotel El Velero in Playa Hermosa for their support in the artificial reef project.  Your contribution has helped the project greatly.

If you’re a fishy in need of an underwater apartment, the Hotel now has affordably priced fish condos!

For human’s looking for a place to stay, the Hotel El Velero is a Mediterranean-style, boutique hotel on the beach in Costa Rica

Pure Travel Costa Rica – Thank You!

Thank you Pure Travel Costa Rica for supporting the Playa Hermosa Artificial Reef Project.  We took some pictures of your newly constructed fish condo.    Also thank you for the blogging support at www.puretravelcostarica.com .

Here are the shots:

“Pure Travel Costa Rica S.A. specializes in vacation rentals in the Golfo de Papagayo area (Playas del Coco, Playa Hermosa and Playa Ocotal) in the province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Remax Tres Amigos in Playa Hermosa – Thank you!

In the coming weeks we’ll be posting pictures of some our sponsors of the artificial reef project. One of our earliest supporters was Remax Tres Amigos in Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste. They’ve been selling real estate for years to humans above the surface and decided to check out the market under the sea.  The economic downturn hasn’t affected the fish condo market!

Thank you for your support Remax.

–Playa Hermosa Artificial Reef Project

Shipwreck’s Final Days

After long days with numerous hours underwater, using personal gear, funding from the Playa Hermosa Association, aid from the municipality and from our own pockets, the Shipwreck operation is at a standstill.

Two weeks ago the CondoFish team did successfully move a large section of the wreck (roughly the size of a panga) from the sea floors and sink it on the reef project site.  This is a success and will serve as a another structure for the fish at the Artificial Reef site to live and feed on.  More about the successful 1st phase of the project can be read about here. Nature Air’s Blog About the Shipwreck

The 2nd larger section of the boat required more materials, a larger tow boat, more time and more funding.  Currently the municipality (who originally requested us to do the work) is not interested in putting any more time or funding into the project.  The CondoFish team had no issue completing the task without payment but the team cannot continue to spend our personal funds and time without the support of the municipality or the support of the owners of the boat.  Also, dive shops in the area were generously donating 10-15 air tanks at a time in high season without compensation.

We will now go and retrieve the barrels still attached to the wreck and leave it in the hands of the municipality and the owners of the boat(with whom the responsibility lay).  There is a possibility that a large tuna boat in the area could come and help remove it from the shoreline.  We will be happy to aid in the process.

We’re looking forward to getting back to work on the reef project.