THE STATE STONE: AGATISED CORAL
David Attenborough’s shows often feature coral reefs. Beautiful on television, the reality is truly stunning – especially if you scuba dive down to get a close look. Spend a day helping the Coral Restoration Foundation in Key Largo. Start with a talk by a marine biologist and then take a dive boat out to the Coral Tree Nursery. Thirty feet below the surface, what look like old-fashioned TV antennae provide support for baby coral. Rather like weeding a garden, volunteers can clean these frames and then ‘outplant’, or transfer, healthy specimens on to a reef. Non scuba divers can snorkel and watch the action from above. This is a great experience for youngsters, whose photos will be the envy of their schoolmates (www. coralrestoration.org/dive-programs).