The waters off Duncans Bay/Silver Sands are home to a vast 75 hectare seagrass meadow in pristine condition and crystal clear waters. The meadow ends at an emerging barrier reef crest that extends for 3 kilometres along the Silver Sands main beach before continuing around the Braco peninsula.

This long line of coral hardground slopes to circa 10 meters where it becomes a linear system of fringing spur-and-groove channels, whose buttresses were formerly built from the very species we are growing in our nurseries.

On the inside of the lagoon in the eastern section of the bay, locally known as Harmony Hall beach, there is a well developed shallow reef with healthy populations of various boulder coral species.

Today, the reef crest is stabilised by the interlocking branches of historical Elkhorn (Acropora palmata) skeletons, most of which is largely overgrown with thick macroalgae. According to a survey by the Georgia Aquarium sponsored by DBMS founding members in 2019, macroalgae accounted for roughly 70% of the benthic cover on the reef slope.

For the most part, the shallow waters off Harmony Hall, around the bend from Braco are built of vast gardens of freshly killed elkhorn, subject to the 2023 heatwave, whose skeletons swiftly began to erode with the onset of winter storms.