{"id":373573,"date":"2015-10-24T17:00:11","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scubadiverlife.com\/?p=11349"},"modified":"2018-09-22T21:37:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T18:37:13","slug":"the-mystery-of-star-coral-spawning-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.proscubadiver.net\/the-mystery-of-star-coral-spawning-2\/scuba_news\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mystery of Star Coral Spawning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article written by Steve Rosenberg and Greg Bassett<\/em><\/p>\n

Photography by Steve Rosenberg<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Video by Greg Bassett<\/em><\/p>\n

We were sitting on a dive boat off the south shore of Grand Cayman, in the middle of the night, already geared up and ready to witness \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and hopefully capture images of \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a spectacular display of reef regeneration. Each year, usually in August or September, many of the corals in Cayman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reefs spawn simultaneously over a three-night period, releasing bundles of eggs and sperm at the same time so that they can cross-fertilize and scatter in the currents. If this year was to be the same as in years past, for approximately 45 minutes to an hour and a half on three consecutive nights, many corals, including several species of star corals and one species of brain coral, would release tiny packets containing millions of sperm and eggs. The predicted dates are calculated roughly five to seven days after the eighth full moon of the year, usually in August, and a couple of hours after sunset. Generally this event will take place between August 30 and September 26. This year the full moon was on August 29, making September 3, 4 and 5 the nights when everything was going to happen.<\/p>\n