Vera finalizing the mold

Ants to the rescue

We worked hard to push CoralGardening forward. With good results. The permit is final, the workshop for CoralGardening is a fact and a few divecenters are already interested to join us building the Coral Garden. Several agencies are interested in our presentations, so we will be busy in the near future.
Beside these things we worked on a plan to figure out a way to create the flower made from concrete.

Vera finalizing the mold
Vera finalizing the mold
Frank cutting wood for the mold
Frank cutting wood for the mold

The core should have a cone shape, this one is made of 4 parts, so it is easy to transport. In order to make the four elements equal, it is easy to turn it into a mold and pour in the concrete. A round mold is harder to create than a square, but sometimes the solutions are close by.

The straight sides of the mold are made with the aid of planks and the round edges are made by digging a hole in the ground. The boards will be in the hole of the ground. With help of mud and clay the round shape will be created. That hole is filled with poured concrete. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” It worked to get the desired shape.

The mold buried in the ground
The mold buried in the ground

The second idea is to make the shape out of rougher concrete. If you pour concrete into a mold it is just as smooth as the mold.

The bottom and sides are super smooth and do not provide shelter for marine life. With the new core, it’s poured into a hole in the ground already somewhat rougher, but not yet as we liked. There should be more holes, cracks and openings, preferably using locally available (waste) material. We used pieces of fruit waste to create more shapes.

We used pineapple skin and apple cores etc. Once the concrete is removed from the mold, the fruit can be removed. The ants will take care of the leftovers from the fruit. The remaining holes provide beautiful spaces in different shapes and sizes for small marine animals to live in.

Concrete with fruit waste in the sand mold.
Concrete with fruit waste in the sand mold.

 

Ready to dry
Ready to dry

 

Excavate the result
Excavate the result

 

The result: concrete with lots of holes.
The result: concrete with lots of holes.

Another idea to provide more shelter, is to add small touches to the surfaces of the statues. For this, Simone made a mold of silicone. Simone thanks for the effort and results!

 Vera received the mold made by Simone.

Vera received the mold made by Simone.

Are you also interested what comes from the silicone mold? Stay tuned and look out for our next update.

We are happy to announce some extra good news: our teacher and inspirer Chad Scott is declared cured of leukaemia. The past six months he has undergone many chemotherapies to fight the disease, and it worked! He is now on Koh Tao and is quietly recovering.