In the first week of June, Gili Lankanfushi’s Marine Biology and Sustainability team hosted a week of Ocean-related activities, workshops and presentations for guests and hosts in celebration of World Ocean’s Week! Together with guests, we conducted guided fish identification snorkels, coral regeneration workshops, sand castle competitions and treasure hunts. We also had a very successful screening of the David Attenborough documentary, “A Life on Our Planet” in the Jungle Cinema, appropriately accompanied by the squawking of Bob the Heron making a nest in a nearby tree!
Our activities were designed to educate and excite our guests and hosts, to engage with our environment in order to inspire attitudes to protect, preserve and nurture our Ocean ecosystems!
Guided Snorkels
Throughout the week, we guided six snorkels of our house reef, involving 47 individual guests. Some guests were even lucky enough to spot mantis shrimp and Christmas tree worms, as well as octopus, squid, moray eels, turtles, reef sharks and hundreds of different fish species.
Sand Castle Competition
Both teams chose to make very beautiful turtle sculptures in our sandcastle competition on World Oceans Day. All generations took part in the event held on library beach, with our youngest competitor being only 5 years old!
Marine Megafauna Presentation
Gili Lankanfushi hosts from multiple departments came to Gili Veshi to learn about the megafauna of the Maldives and share stories of the various sharks, turtles, rays, whales and dolphins that they have seen during their time living and working in the Maldives.
Nature Scavenger Hunt
Some of our younger guests were super enthusiastic about our nature scavenger hunt and found all sorts of creatures around the island from coral and hermit crabs to two different heron species and fluffy baby water hen chicks!
We Also Celebrated Our 320th Coral Line!
More than 14 guests got involved in our coral lines workshop. We chose one small loose fragment of Porites coral from the house reef and broke it into 19 separate fragments, which the guests secured to the line and measured. We then planted the line in its new home within the coral nursery under castaway, our floating pontoon.
