Coral Is Dying. Can It Be Reborn?

Clouds were moving across the sun and a 20-knot northeast wind was stirring a 3-foot chop as Meaghan Johnson headed her open boat into the Florida Straits.

Ms. Johnson, a program coordinator for the Nature Conservancy, headed the boat into the swells, to minimize swamping, as her passengers tried in vain to avoid soaking spray.

One of them, Ken Nedimyer, stood next to her at the console, gazing out at the seemingly featureless welter of waves, seeking signs — a slight change in water depth here, a barely visible underwater patch of reef there — that only he could recognize and triangulate with the rapidly disappearing onshore landmarks of Key Largo.

About two and a half miles out, he told Ms. Johnson to throttle back a bit. “Over there,” he said, pointing off the starboard bow. “About 400 yards.”

The boat pulled up to the site and Philip Kramer, who directs the conservancy’s Caribbean Marine Program, set its anchor. Soon he, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Nedimyer were over the side, peering into the water through their snorkeling masks. Below them was what they had come to see, an array of concrete disks set in the sand. Each one held a tiny piece of coral.

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