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At first, the snorkelling on Moore Reef, 45 kilometres east of Cairns, is just what you’d expect – shimmering curtains of damsel fish, spotted sweetlips sashaying like models on a catwalk, vivid corals, willowy seagrasses, a whitetip reef shark and green turtles soaking it all up. But there’s something else.
Down below is a structure of hexagonal steel panels coated with limestone and resin, to which are attached coral ‘crumbs’. These ‘reef stars’ are anchored to rubble beds and hug existing bommies. Over time, corals attached to them will integrate with the rest of the reef.
Also swimming with us are two sea ‘toys’, autonomous underwater robots that look like lean, shiny vacuum-cleaners. They target the coral-destroying crown-of-thorns starfish, engage in greenhouse gas mapping, and precision-seed the reef with