EVENTS & OUTREACH

World Ocean Day

STAND UP FOR CORAL REEFS

CCMI invites friends of all ages to join us for World Ocean Day 2021 as we Stand Up for Coral Reefs!

CCMI celebrates World Ocean Day every year as part of our Healthy Reefs outreach efforts, and in 2021, we will be returning to our special World Ocean Day Reefs Go Live event at the Camana Bay Cinema!

DATE: Saturday, 5th June 2021
TIME: 1:45pm-2:30pm
LOCATION: Camana Bay Cinema

Go on a virtual dive with our team in Little Cayman as we go underwater and learn why we should stand up for coral reefs. Our Grand Cayman ‘dive buddies’ at the Cinema will help us explore this ecosystem, and we’ll appreciate the beauty and diversity of coral reefs. Together, we’ll discuss why reefs are so important to the Cayman Islands, learn why climate change is an urgent threat to long term survival of coral reefs, and discuss why we need to stand up for coral reefs now. CCMI’s educators and researchers will help everyone leave the event with specific actions we can all take to help save corals reefs.

This virtual underwater experience also allows the audience the opportunity to send questions to our Little Cayman dive team, with selected questions being answered live during the broadcast! Come prepared to ask your coral reef questions.

Come a little early and join us in taking the ‘Stand Up for Reefs’ pledge outside the Camana Bay Cinema. Share a recording of yourself taking the pledge on social media to help us spread the word!

** This event is free and open to the public. Families are encouraged to participate. REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED. Donations are appreciated and support the conservation, education, outreach and restoration projects of CCMI.

 

Join us in Standing Up for Coral Reefs! Learn more about how you take part in important efforts this World Ocean Day.

Register HERE

Healthy Reefs Virtual Art Gallery

As a project in the fall of 2020, students in Ms. McDougall’s art class at the Cayman Islands Further Education Centre (CIFEC), were tasked with creating a two-dimensional piece of art to support CCMI’s Healthy Reefs campaign.

Students explored different art techniques while also learning about coral reefs, marine life, CCMI’s work and the important of healthy coral reefs to the Cayman Islands to create meaningful pieces that conveyed the campaign’s important messages.

We invite you to visit our Healthy Reefs Virtual Art Gallery and enjoy the beauty of the art and the talent of these students.

Visit the Virtual Gallery

We appreciate the support of our sponsors and partners who are making this World Ocean Day celebration possible:

World Oceans Day 2020

Little Cayman Named a Mission Blue Hope Spot

On Saturday 6th June 2020, CCMI shared news of hope, resiliency and a clear pathway for corals reefs. With the help of our Royal Patron, HRH The Earl of Wessex, and Dr Sylvia Earle of Mission Blue, CCMI announced that we have successfully championed Little Cayman as a Mission Blue Hope Spot! The island is now recognized as a Hope Spot because of the high abundance of threatened and endemic species found there – both on land and underwater. Just off the western point of Little Cayman is a site protected by the Cayman Islands Government that is one of the last remaining large spawning aggregation sites for the endangered Nassau grouper. Green, hawksbill and loggerhead sea turtles nest on Little Cayman’s beaches every year, and the coast is abundant with marine life, including seven species of sharks. Little Cayman’s coral reefs are also a vibrant contributor to the Island’s rich biodiversity.

2020 World Oceans Day Virtual Underwater Photography Exhibition

CCMI offered an online exhibition of underwater photography from some of our favourite photographers as part of a virtual World Oceans Day celebration in 2020! You can enjoy these beautiful photos again this year and learn more about each photographer in the virtual gallery.

We hope you enjoy this free exhibition of underwater photography, which was part of our effort to bring news of hope, resiliency and a clear pathway for corals reefs during a time of uncertainty amid the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

VISIT VIRTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION

Chris Alpers

Chris Alpers

Chris Alpers was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and he graduated from Colorado State University with degree in natural resource management. In 1995, Chris became a PADI dive instructor and moved to Grand Cayman where he has been guiding dives for the last 25 years. In 2004, Chris and his wife Katie started Indigo Divers. Believing less is more, Indigo Divers only takes six divers out at a time.

www.indigodivers.com

Cathy Church

Cathy Church

As a child, Cathy Church was an avid biologist and bird watcher. A versatile photographer, she is well known for many styles of photography from documentary and editorial to gallery art.

Cathy has taught thousands of divers how to enjoy their photography. She still offers seminars throughout the USA and teaches regularly at her underwater photo centre in Grand Cayman.

www.cathychurch.com

Julie Corsetti

Julie Corsetti

Born and raised in Albany NY, Julie always dreamed of living the life of an island girl. After traveling the world and learning to scuba dive, Julie fell in love the the underwater world. She moved to Grand Cayman in 1994, and took a job as an underwater photographer and dive instructor. Julie still lives in Cayman, inspired by the beauty of the land and sea.

www.juliecorsettiphotography.com
www.deepblueimages.com

Ellen Cuylaerts

Ellen Cuylaerts

Ellen Cuylaerts is an ocean advocate, underwater & wildlife photographer, explorer, public speaker. Inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2019, Ellen’s work has been exhibited worldwide, from New York to St. Petersburg. Ellen loves the Arctic and telling stories about animals that need the ice for hunting and breeding, but she also loves the darkness and silence of cave diving. 
www.ellencuylaerts.com

Jacqui Mance

Jacqui Mance

Jacqui lived and worked in Cayman for 16 years before returning to South Africa, where she now works in a dive shop in Simons Town, Cape Town as a front office and bookings manager. In her spare time, she does photography and photo editing, and she is currently putting a portfolio together to start selling prints of landscape, underwater and animals.

facebook.com/jacquimancephotography/

Amanda Nicholls

Amanda Nicholls

Amanda lives in Grand Cayman where she works as an underwater photo pro. She loves to travel and has been to some amazing diving destinations worldwide. She has won numerous awards and recognition for her photos. She hopes her viewers will see what an amazing world it is under the sea and will help protect it with her, for our future.

www.amandanicholls.com

Sherri Noonan

Sherri Noonan

Sherri Noonan has a home in Cayman Kai, Grand Cayman, where she resides for at least six months a year.

This is where her passion for diving started.

She was certified to dive by Patrick Weir from Deep Blue Divers in 2004 and continues to enjoy any time spent underwater, taking in the beauty of the marine environment.

instagram.com/sherri_noonan

Tiago Peixoto

Tiago Peixoto

Originally from Portugal, Tiago has lived in Little Cayman since 2016. He bought his first underwater photo setup in 2009, when he was a teenager.

After traveling Africa, Europe, Central and South America, his journey lead him to Little Cayman. He worked as a dive instructor and boat captain for three years before joining Reef Divers Photo Center as a photo pro.

facebook.com/littlecaymanphoto

Diana Schmitt

Diana Schmitt

It is hard to explain to a non-diver the passion to go underwater and see marine life eat, fight, mate and die, sometimes all in the span of an hour. An avid scuba diver, Diana is obsessed with recording marine life through photography and sharing her images to spread the word about the beauty, colour and detail of the ocean.

Diana has been part of CCMI for 20 years as a Board member and a Navigator. She is proud of the work they have done to further research on the future of coral reefs.

Jeff Varga

Jeff Varga

Jeff Varga grew up in Canada and fell in love with scuba diving on the west Coast of British Columbia.

He became an instructor in 2001 and moved to the Caribbean in 2002.

He took up underwater photography early in his instructing career and has been practicing ever since.

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