Friday, June 10, 2005
The waters of Hantu and Raffles Lighthouse
Ahhh.... the joy of coming back to Singapore and getting my fins wet after one month of a dry spell doing MATHS in Bangkok.
Anyway, this will be quite a photo-less blog I must warn you... because I FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA WITH ME UNDERWATER! =(
OK, so the story goes like this:
It's my first time doing work dives in such a long time, and I WAS DREADING IT.
After hearing all the horror stories from Debby and her Hantu Blogger team ("1 foot at 2-3m depth and 0m past 7m depth") I was expecting to be diving into BROWN MUCK; blind and groping around for my experimental racks at Hantu.
So that's why I decided to dive Raffles Lighthouse first, hoping that vis would be as good as the last dive I had (7th May). To my surprise, the water was also GREEN and quite heavily sedimented! I WAS AGHAST!
Well, the GREEN bit I can understand... it IS the warmer months of June... warmer waters... algal blooms... phytoplankton... GREEN... versus diving in Nov/Dec when waters are colder and less phytoplankton in our waters...(THE SEA ACTUALLY SEEMS BLUE-ISH EVEN WITH ALL THE SILT!)
But the SILT... MAN! The waters can be GREEN but they can STILL be CLEAR too...
And BOTH Raffles Lighthouse and Hantu had the same green SILTY waters!
According to some of our "older" divers, Singapore was never so SILTY eventhough the waters do get GREENISH due to the seasonal phytoplankton blooms in warmer periods.
Interestingly enough, the start of this bad visibility in our waters seems to be in conjunction with the re-start of the Tuas reclamation... Hmm... makes you think huh...
I miss the clear waters. When the vis was 4+m every single time we dived in. It just goes to show that if reclamation and dredging just stops.... the vis CAN...AND WILL... IMPROVE...
In the mean time, eventhough the vis is so bad... the marine life are STILL THERE!!!! Me and Tse-Lynn was pleasantly surprised when we found that the reefs of Raffles Lighthouse were strewn with BABY FEATHER STARS!!! (sorry no photo! I FORGOT MY CAMERA!) THEY WERE SO CUUUUTTEEEEE!!!!!!!
And I brought Jun, my new dive buddy and probably lab slave (soon soon...) to see crinoids and ALLIED COWRIES!!
Oozie, my other dive buddy... saw a 70cm GROUPER and I sneaked up on a BATFISH and was less than a meter away from it!
AHHHAAAH! The bad vis means.....YOU CAN SNEAK UP ON FISH!!! Hahaha....
Signing off, THE BLUE TEMPEH! =) ¶ 11:02 am
Anyway, this will be quite a photo-less blog I must warn you... because I FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA WITH ME UNDERWATER! =(
OK, so the story goes like this:
It's my first time doing work dives in such a long time, and I WAS DREADING IT.
After hearing all the horror stories from Debby and her Hantu Blogger team ("1 foot at 2-3m depth and 0m past 7m depth") I was expecting to be diving into BROWN MUCK; blind and groping around for my experimental racks at Hantu.
So that's why I decided to dive Raffles Lighthouse first, hoping that vis would be as good as the last dive I had (7th May). To my surprise, the water was also GREEN and quite heavily sedimented! I WAS AGHAST!
Well, the GREEN bit I can understand... it IS the warmer months of June... warmer waters... algal blooms... phytoplankton... GREEN... versus diving in Nov/Dec when waters are colder and less phytoplankton in our waters...(THE SEA ACTUALLY SEEMS BLUE-ISH EVEN WITH ALL THE SILT!)
But the SILT... MAN! The waters can be GREEN but they can STILL be CLEAR too...
And BOTH Raffles Lighthouse and Hantu had the same green SILTY waters!
According to some of our "older" divers, Singapore was never so SILTY eventhough the waters do get GREENISH due to the seasonal phytoplankton blooms in warmer periods.
Interestingly enough, the start of this bad visibility in our waters seems to be in conjunction with the re-start of the Tuas reclamation... Hmm... makes you think huh...
I miss the clear waters. When the vis was 4+m every single time we dived in. It just goes to show that if reclamation and dredging just stops.... the vis CAN...AND WILL... IMPROVE...
In the mean time, eventhough the vis is so bad... the marine life are STILL THERE!!!! Me and Tse-Lynn was pleasantly surprised when we found that the reefs of Raffles Lighthouse were strewn with BABY FEATHER STARS!!! (sorry no photo! I FORGOT MY CAMERA!) THEY WERE SO CUUUUTTEEEEE!!!!!!!
And I brought Jun, my new dive buddy and probably lab slave (soon soon...) to see crinoids and ALLIED COWRIES!!
Oozie, my other dive buddy... saw a 70cm GROUPER and I sneaked up on a BATFISH and was less than a meter away from it!
AHHHAAAH! The bad vis means.....YOU CAN SNEAK UP ON FISH!!! Hahaha....
Signing off, THE BLUE TEMPEH! =) ¶ 11:02 am
