Anchor damage is a leading destroyer of coral reefs and sensitive
    marine environments all over the world.  

    For more than two decades,
    Environmental Moorings International
    has provided the only practical solution to this crisis.     

    In 1981, John C. Halas, Sanctuary Biologist for the Key Largo National
    Marine Sanctuary, began to design and test the breakthrough
    concept of environmental moorings, an anchor embedded in the sea
    floor without detriment to the surrounding
    marine ecosystem.  

    As a result of these efforts, he established the Coral Reef
    Environmental Mooring Buoy System, which is extremely effective in
    hard bottom substrate.  

    His methods soon expanded to include Manta Ray sand and soft
    bottom anchors.  Both systems are now used worldwide to protect the
    marine environment in marine parks, dive sites, marinas and other
    protected areas.

    Mooring buoys have become a symbol of environmental protection
    throughout tropical coral reef regions.


EMI Moorings
Judy Halas drills a hole in the
Saba Marine Park living reef to
insert a stainless steel pin
(foreground) for a permanent
mooring. Dive boats can be tied
to lines floated from these
moorings, which are important in
preventing anchor damage, one
of the most common threats to
heavily visited tropical reefs.
Similar moorings have been
installed in the Bonaire Marine
Park, the Florida Keys, and other
marine parks.
(Photo: Tom van't Hof)
Our History