MIAMI – Just hundreds of feet from the beats and bustle of Ocean Drive is a veritable natural treasure that not many people, including scientists, know is there.
Schools of tropical fish in all shapes and colors abound, as nurse sharks, sea turtles and eagle rays swim stealthily through an underwater forest of lush Gorgonians and large mounding corals, 15 feet beneath the ocean’s surface, and just 600 feet off the shores of South Beach.
“On a clear day you can actually see the beginnings of it from the beach and you can see the magic pretty quickly,” says David Grieser, an avid scuba diver and board member of the Urban Paradise Guild, which is now leading the charge to protect the reef that begins at the South Pointe Jetty and extends all the way north just past 12th Street Beach.
Grieser and his husband Patrick Breshike discovered the reef while paddle boarding in the fall of 2021. On that spectacularly clear day, they could see the corals from the surface. So they dove down to check it out and were wowed by what they saw.
“There’s not just a little coral down here; there’s a lot of coral,” Grieser said. “These are big rare hard corals. And we were like, what? How can this be?”
At first, the couple kept their discovery to themselves as they continuously explored the reef that seemed to go on forever and was teaming with life and healthy vibrant corals. But they quickly realized this underwater paradise needed to be protected. The reef is on the east side of the vessel exclusion zone buoys. Speeding boats and personal watercrafts regularly zoom above it. Some boaters even anchor on top of the fragile coral.
“The goal will be to slightly expand that vessel exclusion zone to be on the other side of the reef so that we could be diving out there safely,” said Grieser.
So the mission was launched to tell the world what was hiding in plain sight.
Local 10 environmental advocate Louis Aguirre was invited by Grieser and Breshike to tour the reef earlier this summer. Most recently, Aguirre and the crew were back when coral scientists from UM’s Rosenstiel School and Rescue a Reef program went out to survey the reef for the first time just off Sixth Street Beach.
For research associate Dalton Hesley, it was indeed like discovering a hidden gem.
“I suppose it was just a little off the beaten trail, where you know, we’ve worked to map, monitor and restore kind of the historical coral reef, but never really explored near-shore,” said Hesley.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Florida is still recovering from last year’s devastating mass coral bleaching event, the worst in our state’s history after what was the hottest summer ever recorded on planet Earth fueled by human-caused climate change.
“In the Florida Keys, they’re saying that about 75% of the restored corals were lost from that bleaching event,” said Hesley.
For Grieser, having the science team here was a critical step to be able to afford this special place the protections it needs.
“To actually have scientists come out here and really assess its potential for helping rebuild Florida’s reef track, and being a potential restoration site and marveling at how these urban corals are succeeding against all odds in this environment, this is important,” said Grieser.
Hesley and his team spent an hour documenting and photographing their finds. The scientists couldn’t hide their excitement.
“Some of these corals were 50 years old. They’re very healthy, which is great news. There’s Montastraea cavernosa, which is a big reef building coral. There was Dichocoenia stokesii, which is this pineapple coral, and it was fishy, very fishy. Everywhere I turned, they were following us around having a good time,” said Hesley.
For Grier and Urban Paradise Guild, the ultimate vision is to create a marine park in the ocean from South Pointe to 12th Street, which would also incorporate the soon to be deployed Reefline underwater sculpture park, north of Fourth Street, and extend the vessel exclusion zone to just east of the reef.
The establishment of a marine protected park will have many regulatory hurdles to overcome and would need state and federal approval, a process that could take years. But that effort has already begun. Last month, the Miami Beach City Commission unanimously passed a consent resolution to begin to research the possibility of making it happen.
The city owns the permits for the vessel exclusion zone buoys, moving them would be the first step.
Amy Knowles, Miami Beach Chief Resilience Officer, Environment and Sustainability Director says the work has started.
“My team will be exploring the feasibility and regulatory pathway for a Miami Beach Marine Park or conservation area and reporting back to our City Commission by September 30, 2024,” said Knowles. Looking into that (vessel exclusion buoy) permit will be part of the research.”
Urban Paradise Guild has already collected more than 17 letters of support from city, county and state elected officials and is now collecting signatures from residents on a petition to protect the Miami Beach Reef and create the marine park.
For Hesley, this is a win-win for the city and the global effort to restore corals at a time when climate change is increasingly threatening the future of healthy reefs.
“To have a coral reef this accessible to community members is rare,” Hesley said. “Not every community has that, and so to be able to build some platform for people to be able to go and explore reef without having to be on a boat is really important.”
“Come see the reef, come be a coral advocate with us,” said Breshike. “There’s so much cool stuff out here to see and we need to protect it for the future generations to come.”
Miami Beach commissioners discussed a resolution for the feasibility of creating a marine park or marine conservation area, and Local 10 viewers can read their proposal here:
Local 10 viewers can also view the map and proposed pitch to create the marine park in Miami Beach in the document below.