Your ears will hear magical words at the entrance: Welcome to sandals. Welcome to Home. Your eyes see the glorious, unspeakable greeting. Welcome to the Caribbean. Welcome to the most beautiful ocean on earth.
Please come near. Walk past the pool, across the feathery soft beach, into the most beautiful water comforts you’ve ever seen. On the surface, it’s a shade of turquoise, emeralds, and blue you didn’t know existed.
Ah, you’re just waiting. You haven’t seen the most spectacular sights under the surface yet. Many of the 20,000 people who work at sandal resorts across the Caribbean saw them. They grew up in this water, swimming, fishing and diving. They understand how the oceans and their coral reefs connect people to islands, their environment and their lives.
It is part of everyone who calls the Caribbean “home.”
And now a timeless heritage for sandal guests taking part in Reef Rescue and Coral Nursery Transplant Dives. These PADI experiences are curated for sandals.
Think about it. How many tourists can say that they have legally established Living and breathing heritage in the Caribbeanon vacation? Soaking in the ocean and taking photos is one thing, but when you are in the ocean, love reaches a deeper level, with the aim of making it healthier and cleaner for future generations.
But this is exactly what sandal guests do on five Caribbean islands. San Lucia, Bahamas, Curacao, Grenada and Jamaica. By giving several hours of vacation time to participate exclusively Coral Repair Programthey go home with one of the most fascinating first lines of travel stories you can imagine: I became a Caribbean coral gardener.
The story of a coral gardener in sandals is a story that lives on forever beyond the story of dinner. All parts of planted coral grow into healthier habitats for marine life. It protects the coastline and becomes part of the Caribbean underwater charm.
A guest in the sandals can say, “I had that hand.”
“Caribbean health starts at our oceans,” says Adam Stewart, international executive chairman of Sandals Resort. “And there’s no better way to make a difference than inviting sandal guests to an active participant.”
At the last count, Sandal guests and local underwater courtyarders have worked together to implant more than 37,000 coral fragments through a program led by the Sandal Foundation and its partners. Many guests arrived in sandals as beginner divers, took specialized courses in coral restoration and immersed themselves in an unforgettable gardening experience.
So get closer. Note that coral reefs are more vibrant, fish are more abundant, and communities are more independent. Dive into this enduring cycle of Caribbean goodness. And build a constantly growing legacy in the ocean while you’re in it.
St. Lucia
Welcome to the island where the coral nursery transplant programme begins, with sandal guests participating. Since 2018, over 16,000 coral fragments have been planted right next to St. Lucia. It is impossible to calculate the merits.
“We rely on sandal guests to maximize the impact of this program,” says Newton Ellissey, operations director for the Center for Livelihood, Ecosystem, Energy, Adaptation and Resilience (clear).
Guests at all three sandal resorts – Sandal Halcyon, Sandal Regency Latock and Sandal Grande St. Lucian – learn restoration techniques through the specialist coral nursery transplantation that is a Paddy’s signature. Then together, they all enter the sea to wet their hands into the garden.
“By supporting the strengthening of the reefs, sandal guests are helping to enhance their lives in the Caribbean,” says Ellissey.
The strengthening will not end as you experience the cycle firsthand, known as the “sustainable fundraising mechanism.” All funds will return to the Coral Gardening Program, where the same certified divers who train sandal guests can train others in St. Lucia. Coral gardening skills expand to cover more of the island and ocean. Already there is a coral nursery located just south of the iconic Pitons, and soon St. Lucia’s divers launch a snorkel trail to showcase how fragments of coral transplanted by sandal guests flourished in a grand health model.
Bahamas
The colorful coral reefs have brought in the Bahamas for centuries, but the young forests of coral budding near the sandals are different to the royal Bahamians. They are an ongoing sight, the result of the Perry Institute of Marine Science’s new Reef Rescue Network site, supported by the Sandal Foundation and managed by the men and women of the Royal Bahamian Water Sports Team.
Resort guests will descend into the sea with members of the team who have been trained in sandals to take something new Specialized courses for Leaflet Cu divers. During the dive, guests first learn how to maintain a coral nursery and actually transplant the coral from the nursery to the reef.
Founded just a year ago, the first tree of the nursery has already thrived with hundreds of elkhorns and stagone coral fragments. As the fragments grow, so will the heritage of marine well-being and the sandal guests who have a whole new place to marvel at present.
Curacao
and Over 70 Diving Sites It has an endless beauty to explore across the coast of Curacao, and now it is preserved and protected thanks to the Sandal Foundation. Sandals Royal Curacao Dive Shop Team and Sandal Foundation Branch Coral Foundation And they have already distributed five coral trees, each of which has sprouted new 80 fragments of Stagone coral. The goal is to destroy 300 fragments every six months until it covers 100 square meters of coral reef.
Members of the Resort Dive Team become caretakers of coral fragments. This will ultimately be equipped to guide resort guests with coral gardening techniques. It is important to note that new corals grow uninterrupted, thanks in large part to future target programs. The project removes plastic debris from the ocean and its shores, creating and distributing over 60 goals over the past three years and is being reused in the School of Curacao soccer goals.
Grenada
More glorification is actively underway at the southern tip of the Caribbean. [Grenada’s]https://www.sandals.com/grenada/) The coast is becoming a coral ambassador. Their awareness and skills improved when the Sandal Foundation worked with the Grenada Coral Reef Foundation to provide much-needed coral gardening equipment.
“My family has lived here for generations, and Deleon Forrester of the Sandal Foundation said: “Sharing this practice with neighbors across the island made all the difference. They have something very important. It’s the trust of the community. That’s how we get things done.”
Jamaica
When you come to the original home of sandals: thousands of coral fragments of Jamaica are in one stage of growth, north, south, off the coast of Bosco Bell. The numbers are constantly increasing as divers from surrounding communities actively garden every day.
The reefs undergo a miraculous transformation as the Sandal Foundation appealed to change makers by sharing the benefits of treating reefs as part of the fish sanctuary.
“Before the foundation arrived, the Leaf was beginning to lose its brilliance,” says Terrell, a fisherman who will become the full-time Sandal Foundation ambassador. “They listened to our concerns as fishermen.”
The waters of Bosco Bell and the White House are now shining in life.
“That’s because of the sandals,” Terrell says.
And it brings us back to where the best vacation ever continues. You spent the morning caring for the garden. You’ve made the ocean healthier. And happier than you’ve ever traveled, you return to your suite with a clever view of the ocean and imagine those magical words again: Welcome to the Caribbean.
