My Trachyphyllia was out of water for nearly 6 hours wrapped in wet newspaper in transit from the LFS to my tank, it seemed to suffer no ill effects....it opened right up, fed well, and thrived in my tank for a few years until I accidently squished it in a reef slide...but that's another story. :|
I also recently had my branching hammer out of water off and on for 30 minutes as I "finished" fragging it...it was a huge colonly, 150+ polyps, and I accidentlly broke it into 4 pieces about 2 months ago (yet another maintenance mishap on my part)...I had to clean up the bases and cut them so I could place the new frags, it was in and out of the water for 30 minutes, no ill effects at all so far...
I think as long as the coral doesn't dry up, you have nothing to worry about...at low tide, large parts of the reef are above water for long periods, and they don't die...also, collecters do not keep the specimens submerged all the time either...I think you'll be ok Charlie, just don't let Willis gnaw at it... :lol:
MikeS