DIVING SISTERS, BURAN, KUSU & HANTU. One day. No. More like 6 hours. If you exclude travel time. Four dives. Sites? Sisters' Island, Buran (again, to finish up yesterday's unfinished survey), Kusu Island and Pulau Hantu. But with great vis prevailing...(THREE METRES!)...I'll make the sacrifice...HAHAHA!

SISTERS' ISLAND

We did not do a survey here, but mostly helped Priscila collect her settlement tiles from her experimental rack. See HERE for more of the Marine Biology Lab's projects, albeit a tad outdated.

But from what I know, the reefs of sisters island is actually quite nice. Some parts nicer than others of course. While the deeper reef slopes of Sisters has rather nice seafans, the shallower parts has rather nice corals! Big table corals, boulder corals and rather diverse too in terms of coral species, I must say. Would love to go there for proper leisure dives...well, actually, depends on where you go. I mean, there ARE parts of the islands' reefs that are quite rubble-ized and in a very sad state. We can only hope that there is a way to rehabilitate them back to even a fraction of their original natural glory, man. Sigh. Sigh.

Here's a few photos taken by Tse-Lynn from today's dive:



BURAN REEFS, day 4

"Oh, window to dive here only one hour."
"Should hurry up and dive now."
"Got a bit of current lah, but if you faster go, should be O.K."

These were the wise words of the boatmen. Which, as usual, is as true as the sky is blue. GAH!

Currents were EVEN STRONGER THAN YESTERDAY'S!!!!!!!!!!! Need I say more. I could not stay still long enough to take any photos. The currents were so strong, when we reeled back the transect tapes, we just FLEW and had to hang on for dear life every few metres. The currents were so strong it twisted and knotted the tapes so badly....and we had to hang on so tightly...that I just bunched up the whole 25m of tape all tangled around me up to the surface. No time to unknot and reel back properly. The current was so strong that whatever rocks I held on too, would sometimes get ripped apart or overturned if it was not heavy or firmly attached to the ground. It was at LEAST 1.5 knots. AT LEAST. I think it was probably 2 knots. Then again, I don't really know how fast it is. Judging from how fast i travelled...and the speed of the algae pieces that are flying past, that's how strong the currents were....OK so enough about Buran already. It's finally OVER. HURRAH. Although. Quite sad. It is a VERY nice place to dive with LOTS of nice stuff....

KUSU ISLAND

T'was my turn to do my work at KUSU. Kusu is probably one of my most favourite favourite favourite dive site. It's diverse coral life, even table corals! And sooooo many cute anamonefishes, nudibranchs, soft corals...etc etc and generally nice reef topography make it one of my favourtite favourite favourite dive sites. I've said that already haven't I. Oh well. IT IS my favourite favourite favourite most dive site!



Hmm... do you ever notice that actually, the ANEMONES are also VERY VERY NICE. Eventhough there's no clownfish inhabiting it? The florescense...the swaying movements...HYPNOTIC!



Kusu is also home to....



Hmmm. I think if anyone does anything to harm Kusu more than it has already suffered........GrrRRrrr....

PULAU HANTU

Hehe. What is there to say about Hantu but...fantastic... simply magnificent. Amone all the 4 sites, Hantu had the best vis. It was probably at least 3m. The rest of the sites had vis about 2.5 - 3m....At most. Hantu is GREAT.

The currents were again strong by the time we dived Hantu and did not manage to take any nice shots. But you can always go to the home of the Hantu Bloggers for all the photos and info you need about what you can expect when diving Pulau Hantu!!!! So go. What are you still doing here? GO GO. Shoo! See Debby's site. ALL ABOUT THE PULAU HANTU. Yeaps. All about it....
  ¶ 11:41 PM 0 comments

  BURAN REEF, day 3 & SAINT JOHN'S REEF ........................As I was saying. There are BAD days. And today, the currents are even worse than I've ever experienced while diving in Singapore waters. Makes the "Superman Currents" two days back seem like a stroll in the park...or a swim in the baby's pool....or just plain easy. Apparently, the window for diving THIS particular site of Buran is only about an hour...$%^&@*&$

But it was exciting. Things that went through my head as I was doing the deep transect was:
At Transect 1: "Wah, the seafans and seawhips quite nice, ah."
At Transect 2: "Wow...the seafans are getting more colourful...ooohh and bigger too!"
At Transect 3: ".......I wonder why...."
At Transect 4: "BASKET BASKET BASKET BLARDI...............................HEEEeellLLLLlll...!!!"

As I let go of a rock I was hanging on for dear life, I flew...literally FLEW...back really fast....Almost banged into Tse-Lynn who also flew past me soon after.

Despite all that, we still managed to take a few photos. Hey, who could resist. We've decided at Buran is macrolife haven. Fighting against current, we bring you these photos that Tse-Lynn took:



And all this was taken in the midst of doing work and current...so can you imagine if you were doing a leisurely dive and had time to actually LOOK for things! HmmmMMmmm.....

SAINT JOHN'S REEF

Well, that was actually the more exciting half of the day...which was the second half. The morning dive at Saint John's reef was rather uneventful. Just helping Priscila do her stuff and then Tse-Lynn mucked about and took a few photos...Oh, forgot to mention that the vis was again...GREAT...about 2.5 to 3m. Slurp.

Anyway, although this part of Saint John's (near the jetty) is quite infested with Sargassum along its reef flat and reef crest, the reef slope area is rather free from it and can prove to be quite a pretty dive site. With many many nice corals and other friendly creatures!



Oh, and on the way to Buran Reef, we also saw THIS! A barely alive Trevally with a sizable chunk off its mouth area. Big shark. Big shark. Remember the rather larger remora the boatmen caught....Shark...Shark....Drool. Never seen one while diving in Singapore before. Mmmmmmm.......



  ¶ 11:50 PM 0 comments

  BURAN REEF, day 2. Remember what I said yesterday (see past log)? Well, TODAY is the total opposite. I love my job. I love the sea. Not that I didn't love it yesterday, I just love it MORE, today. It almost felt like a leisure dive today if not for the fact that we WERE doing work...

Big boulder corals and overhangs, nice small pretty corals and little crevices at the reef crest. And big colourful gorgonians and sea whips at the reef slope. Great place. Georgous.



And the macro life is great too! Oargh! If only could stay a litttllleee longer to just take photos of all of it. We saw.....



We also saw SEAWHIP GOBIES!!! These shy gobies are found along seawhips, either camouflaged or doggedly dodging you to the OTHER side of the seawhip. Irritating, I know................But still exciting!!!!



Here's some other things we saw during the dive:



And just as we were reeling back the tapes, under a pretty overhang like this...



...and in a crevice under this....



....I saw these 2 antennas...AND THIS!!!



Too bad for the backscatter...well, WHO CARES! It's a damn lobster!!! And with that, we ended our dive feeling very satisfied indeed...

Oh, did I ever tell you that our boatmen food is FANTASTIC. Dhal and eggplant and fish in special sauce and fried chicken wing and fried ikan bilis and FRIED TOADFISH...with rice. DELICIOUS. MARVELLOUS. GLORIOUS. F.O.O.D. I shall stop this now because I am about to drool...Oops, too late. Damn.

Anyway, let me tell you more about the FRIED TOADFISH. Tender, juicy, milky, smooth meat. Oh, the taste and texture. So...so...MMmmmMMMmmm. The boatmen actually told us it was GROUPER and not the TOADFISH they caught the previuos day. Only after it's all gone and we were licking our fingers clean, then they told us. Probably 'cos they thought if we knew, we wouldn't eat any of it. Yeah right, I eat everything. Especially if it's THAT good. TOADFISH. Will never look at it the same way underwater again..........
  ¶ 6:08 PM 0 comments

  DIVING MIDWAY & BURAN REEFS. Hmm? What's that?? What sort of conditions do we dive in you ask? Well, to begin with, cloudy days are not suppose to stop us from doing work. Yes. I mean dark clouds like THIS:



Well, it wasn't that bad until it started RAINING:



Well, the rain didn't last THAT long. The superman currents did though. And the horrible surge. So essentially today's dives were 100m surveys at two depths and two sites, two hours long each, AGAINST superman currents and horible surge in cloudy and rainy weather. How sweet, eh? Plus I got stung by some unknown marine creature while doing horixontal rock-climbing underwater against the current. And for the first time in my dive history, I puked while doing a survey. But the vis was quite O.K. though! At least 2m!

BURAN REEF

Buran Reef is a patch reef located off Sentosa which is only visible during low tide. During high tide, the only thing you'll see is the green and yellow marker buoys indicating where the reefs should be.



Other than the few large boulder corals encountered, the site has mostly been rubble-ized. Rubble rubble rubble, algae algae algae. Well, at least the site we surveyed. But...oh my gawd...it's ANEMONE HEAVEN. WALLS and WALLS of anemones and large boulders just COVERED by anemone. And all that cute anemonefish!!!!



Would have loved to take more photos and stake out an anemonefish, but...you know. Don't make me repeat it.

Also saw nudibranchs and this giant filefish (the biggest I've ever seen ever!) which I didn't manage to take a photo off.



MIDWAY REEF

Located just off Sentosa Cove, Midway Reef is also a patch reef, in the middle of nowhere. Located near the channel where big huge gigantic cargo carrying ships, it isn't much of a reef left...at least where we dived. But the seafans at the deeper end were really quite beautiful, not to mention colourful!







And the long day ended soon after. Oh, and meet one of our boatmen...hehehe...



  ¶ 11:59 PM 0 comments

  THE DAY OF CORAL SEX TALK! Today was the day the Sex-ed GURU, James would give his special talk on the WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE, WHEN and HOW corals do IT. To enlighten us common-folks to the beauty of the coral orgy, and teach you tips and tricks in the coral kamasutra that only he and a few previlaged others know about. YES, my friends, the DAY has arrived!

Dionne, our Public Talks officer, left first with all our precious loot for fund raising and Ria's wonderful posters boasting our rich and beautiful marine life here at our own Southern Shores.

The rest of us arrived at SIF where the talk was going to be held soon after. We got to seting up the booth, displaying the posters and preparing the handouts in a matter of minutes! MINUTES! M.I.N.U.T.E.S.!!!!! Impressive eh...

We were suppose to sell the squeaky marine themed toys that had been donated to us and the Chek Jawa guide books. And yes, proceeds of all sueaky toy sales will go to the Blue Water Volunteers (BWV)...



Even before 3.00 p.m., people started streaming in for James' talk. Must be the free porn. Everyone helped in the giving away flyers and talking to people about BWV and marine conservation. And even Weisong, our self-admited slave-on-loan from the RMBR Toddycats, came down to help set up and mend our booth!



By 3.15 p.m., the Asia room soon filled up and the James began his sex-ed talk. The talk covered the basic of the basics, such as what corals are, where they can be found etc. To the basics of what sex means to corals and which coral can have sex with which coral and what happens after the coral sex and what coral babies look like and where do coral babies go to and things of that sort. A regular science class, with a twist.



Then he went on to talk about Singapore. And how corals in Singapore, unlike Singaporean humans, are still extremely active in their baby-making rituals. While some corals have sex and make babies all through the year, other corals concentrate their resources for a mass orgy once, or maybe twice, a year. The biggest orgies occur in April, but smaller ones have been observed in October as well.

Corals too need the correct MOOD for this sort of thing. The most romantic period, according to corals, is usually 3-4 days after the late March or April full moon. The moon bright and roundish in the night sky when the sun has set, preferably 8-10 p.m.

So if you perverts and voyeurs out there want to peep on these corals making out, remember the conditions above, and you would hopefully see coral spawn...



The GURU was so knowledgable and inspiring that we also see some of our audience taking NOTES. Yes, taking N.O.T.E.S.



The talk soon ended after a show of really magnificent slides of coral spawning which James never showed us before. Dionne then promptly thanked James and presented him with a token of appreciation.



We then mingled and talked to our guests while some of us tried to sell them squeaky toys for our fund-raising. Although not successful, we hope that we've talked to quite a few people today...



........and hope that next time, some kind-hearted soul will adopt FUGU, the death pufferfish, and give him a better home. And at the same time support our efforts in trying to conserve Singapore's rich marine life...



OTHER THINGS WE DID DURING THE TALK...



a movie by Abby and the Fried Tempeh:
CARL the CUTTLEFISH in...KILLER WHALE VS. GREAT WHITE SHARK



AND...CUT!!!! And THAT's how the CUTTLEFISH that we are selling to raise funds for the Blue Water Volunteers has only SEVEN arms instead of EIGHT. Count it the next time we have a booth. Really. No kidding.

Everything that you see and read here is purely fictional and hold no facts whatsoever. Except that the CUTTLEFISH we are selling, DOES have seven tentacles instead of eight!!

And by...........



.......everthing ended and we're all packed up and ready to go.....Till next time!


  ¶ 11:59 PM 1 comments

  CORAL SEX! There'll be photos. There'll be detailed descriptions. There'll be lots of action. YES, It's CORAL PORN. No, no, it's OK. This talk has is G-rated. Safe for viewing by public from all ages and walks of life. Not to worry.....

This talk on the 25^th September by Dr. James R. Guest of the Tropical Marine Science Institute held at SIF Asia Room at 3 - 4 pm on Coral Spawning, will cover HOW corals do IT, WHEN corals do IT, WHERE corals do IT, WHY they do IT, WHAT they do IT with and, you get to meet the voyeur WHO observes them doing IT. The whole nine yards. The full set meal. The complete coral kamasutra AND the guru.

Seats are limited, as usual! So if you want to come join the coral orgy, please email Dionne at mattebluewhite@yahoo.com.sg. Don't forget to email her. Now. Or you'll regret it. Well, OK, don't say I didn't warn you. She'll save you a seat if you email her, you know.

  ¶ 9:58 PM 0 comments

  DIVING TEKUKOR REEF. Two survey sites. Two transect depths. Two divers. TWO VERY SHACK DIVES....with current. Despite all that, the vis was great! 3.5m!

Am not kidding about the vis. See!

Tekukor is a small island located in between Saint John's island and Sentosa in Singapore's southern islands. It was a former ammunition dump and it is currently under MINDEF's jurisdiction. It has fringing reefs around the island and a very extensive reef flat.

Apparently, it used to be a very nice reef. Today, what remains is still precious, but probably only shadows of what it used to be, with sections of nothing but rubble. HUGE boulder corals of Diploastrea heliopora can be found there. When you encounter one of those, it becomes like a mini wall dive. And the sea fans! All so pretty and colourful. The most colourful ones I've seen in Singapore waters so far.

And nudibranchs! I have never seen so many nudibranchs in one dive in Singapore before. Small tiny ones, barely a centimetre long, to big fat ones. Elsie had a close encounter with a flatworm that was at least 15 cm!

There were anemones too but I did not see any clownfish. Well, not on those along the transect. Crabs scurry into holes and crevices as we swam past but one was curious enough to emerge and play around with the transect tape.

The boatmen even caught a REMORA! Which they promptly released back into the sea after a few snapshots by yours truly. Think about it, what do you associate remoras with. And one of this size too. Makes you wonder hmmm.........

Look at that head! Suckers!

  ¶ 4:55 PM 0 comments

  ALMOST FAMOUS. ..............Well not quite. It's a small article on what we were doing at Chek Jawa on the 18th of September, at the top right-hand corner of page 4 of Today Weekend newspaper. Never knew it quite existed until someone from SIF YEP emailed it to me.

You can also view it at Today Online

  ¶ 2:54 PM 0 comments

  ICCS CHEK JAWA 2004. IN PARTS
PART ONE - Before Chek Jawa
At 2.45 a.m. I woke up panicking, thinking it was 7.30 a.m. and that I was horribly late for the ICCS and that everyone was about to kill me. What a thing to dream about huh.

At 5, I was up again. My throat was still killing me and the phlegm was not helping. Damn virus.

At 6.20 we reached Changi Jetty, bought another 2 dozen gloves for the cleanup at a (thankfully) open mama shop.

By 6.45, the volunteers for ICCS Chek Jawa trickled in. By 7, almost half were there and by 7.15, the place had been taken over by eager volunteers ready to help clean up Chek Jawa.

Attendance was taken and volunteers split into respective groups, courtesy of Jen Lee. The logistics were nicely split up into 6, one for each group, courtesy of Tse-Lynn. And the group leaders briefed.

Merey briefing her group

Each group was briefed separately by their own group leaders and then shipped off the bumboats to our adventure island, Pulau Ubin. Over at Ubin, they will then take either a van (rental from Mr. Yeo, of Pulau Ubin Taxi Service, THE way to travel with 11 other people around Ubin) or the trusty NParks truck (courtesy of NParks and Choon Beng).

The NParks TRUCK!

At 7.45, all was going according to plan and the groups were staggered off to Ubin when.....I SAW CHOON BENG AT THE CHANGI JETTY. Panic. Sweat. Means they're having a hold up at the other end. Call Tse-Lynn. Ring Ring. I think just get them to go on ahead with the vans and start work with whatever logistics they have. Don't wait for the truck! They will take time to recce the area anyway! Act calm and hope that the groups will forgive me and that they can keep themselves occupied. Thank god for the great group leaders who know how to kill time.

By 8.30, the last two volunteers from Poh Huat's group arrived in the nick of time as Choon Beng came back to ferry us to Chek Jawa. So far, everything's according to schedule.

I got to admit, I thought that everything would be in total chaos today. Have got to thank all the volunteers for being so cooperative and the group leaders for being so great!

PART TWO - At Chek Jawa: The Excitement
And so we arrived at Chek Jawa. Bags everywhere and everyone's already getting down and dirty. Hands in gloves, gloves on trash, trash in mud, mud everywhere.

And so I sent Poh Huat's group to their section: the BACK MANGROVES. Mud mud mud. More mud. They're tall, they're gung-ho, they'll survive........Anyway the Dr. Ong is with them so if anything happens, they had a medic. And I'm off to see whether everything and everybody else was in place. Although with Tse-Lynn around, I don't think I had much to worry...

"Christmas decoration" section markers

The cleanup was organised this way: 6 sections divided along the ~250m stretch of Chek Jawa mangrove and 6 groups of 10-12 volunteers to take charge of each section. 3 sections were located before (the muddier but shadier sections) THE DRAIN, and 3 sections after (the less muddy but also less shady sections). Incidentally, the drain looked much less perilous than last year and last last year. There were actually proper planks in place! Previously, it was a balancing act on a barely narrow strip of wood. Or, it seemed that way. Anyway, for someone as clumsy as myself, this is fantastic news.

THE DRAIN: notice planks & solid ground

My foot, the plank and the narrow concrete beam

I must have walked up and down that stretch of Chek Jawa at least 20 times. AT LEAST! Passing messages, water, spades, cutters, gloves, messages, weighing scales, wheelbarrow, trash bags, messages, wheelbarrow, spades, tongs.......................But it was fun. Plus, I needed the exercise. I could ALMOST feel my shorts getting looser at the end of the day. Almost.

While I was walking and chalking up my phone bill using Malaysian network to arrange boring logistics, the rest of the volunteers were hard at work. Dirty, sweaty, hot, but hard at work. Exciting.

"LOOK! What a cute worm! Wah! So long!!"

"OK, enough about the worm. Let's get cleaning!"

Jacks and the giant rope.
How many guys does it take to cut a rope?

Well, I admit, the tools and equipment could be much better. This was the first time Chek Jawa had so many people coming down to help clean it up so...bigger, better, more tools next time. But no. Still no chainsaw. Sorry guys.

Besides thick giant ropes. The volunteers encountered all sorts of odd litter...........

A sink.

Some chair.

A cooler.

55 gallon drums, crates, nets, tyres and....

Some odd-looking marker buoy thing.

Oh, and some giant tyres.

By 10.30 a.m., the sun was rising, and so was the tide. Fast. Some groups kept on working while others lugged their loot back to the collection point.

Human Chain

Bring it over, Baby!

I was again pleasantly surprised at how efficient everything went! Even the weighing! All I had to do was brief Angie's group and they took over the whole process! I even overheard some discussing the use of ropes, trees and levers to make things even MORE efficient. AMAZING. If only all groups were like this.

The collection point and trash from sections 1,2,3

The weighing: Quick! How much does it weigh!

At sections after THE DRAIN, they were doing the same thing. Tse-Lynn was there over-seeing the trash weighing there. Lucky for all, after a lot of calling and exploring (I did the calling and Choon Beng did the exploring hehe) we found another entry to the OTHER end of Chek Jawa, the northern end, the end furthest from the collection point. Get my drift. This saved A LOT of time, and trouble, for everyone. Thanks to Choon Beng and his exploring, and driving, skills! And NParks' reforestation project! (The road was there to bring in the plants for the reforestation project).

Trash from Sections 4,5,6

The volunteers were ferried out of Chek Jawa using a few vans and the NParks truck. AND multiple trips using the NParks LAND ROVER. I don't have a photo here, but you can trust me that it looks pretty cool, and comfortable. By 12.30 p.m. We were all out of Chek Jawa!

I take my hats to all the volunteers for giving all you've got and group leaders and Choon Beng and other NParks rangers and Tse-Lynn, who, with her sprained ankle, managed to be a "walker" and help dig out a giant tyre.

Hats off!

PART THREE - At Chek Jawa: The Results & Aftermath

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN! We managed to clean up 1.6 TONS of trash! A WHOLE LOAD OF TRASH! Compared to last year and last last year, when we collected about 200+kg each year, this year's numbers are quite staggering. Then again, last year we only had 9 volunteers, and 10 the previous year.



You can go HERE for a better view of the results. It even has pie charts and all. Very nicely done by Airani. Also, do go take a look at the results and photos from the other sites at COASTAL CLEANUP website.

The amount of trash is staggering. The mountains of plastic bottles, bags and styrofoam! OH the STYROFOAM PIECES EVERYWHERE! The general sentiment by the end of the cleanup was that styrofoam should be BANNED! Not only does it harm the environment in many ways (e.g. leeching out chemicals, CFCs etc), but all those broken pieces can actually become killer litter!

Picking up the pieces...

Marine animals such as fish and turtles can mistake styrofoam bits as food and since it's so durable and indigestible, remain their stomachs for years (if they don't choke on it first). As these styrofoam bits get trapped in their body, they can become permanently buoyant and die. Bags and other litters can have the same effects too. As Choon Beng said, the most important thing about the clean up is not that Chek Jawa is clean, but that all that litter do not go around floating to other locations. Or harming marine animals.

Bottles and bottles and bottles...

It would be hard to ban such environmentally unfriendly materials and items, or stop everyone from littering, but you can make a difference. You can start small. Maybe use less straws, use less plastic bags, bring your own bag when you shop for groceries, or even your own tupperware when packing take-away food! (And, as Jen Lee reminded me, UTENSILS too!)

Essentially, REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE. And let your family and friends know as well! Let your school or work know! The no. 1 reason for indifference is ignorance. If you feel really strongly about certain issues, write them in! Don't wait for others to do it! Tell someone!

May the trash rest in peace.

Well, to be honest, eventhough we collected so much trash and litter, we did not leave Chek Jawa without leaving a mark. This is one of the reasons why there is a limit to the number of people entering Chek Jawa.

Muddy trail of what used to be covered in seaweed.

Trudge marks.....

When nature calls, it SHOUTS

The dump site

Let's just hope we all did more good than bad! That's all for ICCS Chek Jawa 2004 report! See you all next year! By the by, anyone interested in organising next year's cleanup?  ¶ 2:53 PM 3 comments