Barber chuckles at the thought. Plus, with concrete rubble, a barge is needed to haul it into the water, and officials have no control over the final height or shape of the pile. Reef balls are far more portable. With inflatable buoys, reef balls can be towed by a small boat. Deflate one of the buoys and the reef ball sinks to the bottom.
Reef balls are good in shallow water, and concrete lasts longer than old tires or rusting ships.
Old boats don't do that. Sunken ships don't do that. Barber said he's sure his reef balls will last a minimum of 500 years. Diving dilemma Barber and his dad were vacationing in the Cayman Islands, lamenting the decline of reefs in the late 1980s. They came up with an idea for a new kind of reef.