After several Nor’easters and pounding waves from Hurricane Dorian the artificial reef offshore St. Johns county is holding up remarkably well.
A popular fishing and dive site called the Starship Reef is coming up on its two year anniversary this October and life is flourishing on concrete structures placed 70 feet deep.
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The reef’s project manager, Joe Kistel, recently took a video showing an abundance of biodiversity attracted to the spot which includes soft and hard corals along with popular reef fish such as red snapper.
Kistel who works for an organization called TISIRI says the reef is working as designed and has attracted many anglers to the fishing spot.
He does see a need for clean-up maintenance from snared fishing lines often common on underwater obstructions; many of which are precast concrete surplus and donated reef rock shipped in from California.