The North Coast Feature

If you think the Reef Ball Foundation sounds like some annual charity event at a yacht club, it most assuredly is not. It's a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 to help restore and protect the natural reef systems throughout the world, including the reef in Sosúa Bay, by dropping reef-enhancing balls of concrete.

After deploying a reef ball, a team of trained divers, called a Coral Team, transplants imperiled corals on to the artificial reef. Eventually, coral growth covers the Reef Ball, leaving nothing exposed except a healthy natural reef.

The foundation workers have taught local dive operators and resort staff the art of constructing and deploying these balls to provide the infrastructure needed to rehabilitate coral habitats devastated by pollution, overfishing, and severe storms.