Updates galore!

Apparently last year's blog reboot didn't quite make it. Coming up with new thoughts, stories etc to share needs some kinda inspiration I guess, and a special form of energy that seems to be absent in me right now.... On to some updates directly.... Actually, more like updates on how far I have gotten along in completing the goals I have set for 2011....

(1) *points to pic above* Life Saving 123 class is over and we have all passed! Thanks to Jeremy for bringing us through, and to the other ULC folks who have helped us all along the way! Half a 2011 goal done (marks with half a tick) Hope to see all the new friends I've made at BM class! ;p It has been an interesting semester that kinda started from here...

(2) After my second trip to the Similan Islands, have completed my Divemaster training ^_^ So that's another goal down for 2011.

(3) FINALLY started Class 3 lessons. Long overdue, considering my diving certifications and my damn white elephant PPCDL... Sucking out quite a bit of time and money but I WILL GET MY LICENSE BY THE END OF THE YEAR!! (anybody wanna contribute to my "Buy Juan a car fund"? ;p)

(4) LASIK.... 4+ years of putting in eyes and taking them out when I dive (and with the increasing kinda of water activities I'm doing) it makes sense to go burn my eyes... Target is to get this done in November, after BM and after MY dive season has closed... Bad news is that it's another hole in my pocket, good news is interest-free installment payment (meaning it'll be many little holes eating in my pocket instead)

Guess that's it for major updates. Need to get back into the groove of bloggin before this site is gonna make any semblance of sense again...

Click for the rambling...

8... 4... 2... 1? XD

So what do the numbers in the title mean? 8 of us went for this.... And then there were 4..... Fast forward to 3 years later, and as of last weekend, I finally took the plunge and went for my rescue course ^_^

And if it wasn't clear enough, the title's referring to the number of people in the dive courses that I have taken ;p Too bad I forgot to take a group photo with our instructor. Must have been too long since my last course XD

First time on a LOB, and first time ever visiting SAF Yacht Club @ Changi.

Boy was it a nice comfy trip to Pulau Aur. Yummy Thai food, great fun company... Not to mention the kayaking Hello Panda!

Course aside, it did feel good to be diving in Malaysia, after approximately a year. ^_^ The usual suspects were up and around, but as with every divetrip, there would be some pleasant surprises... Like this HUGE hermit crab we saw during the night dive. It was in a volute(?) shell that was as large as a rugby ball!

Even the most commonly seen nudibranch, Pteraeolidia ianthina, can still surprise me. Despite seeing them on just about every reef that I've been to, this is the first time I'm seeing it's egg ribbon ^_^

Unfortunately, not all is well with the Malaysian reefs. Most of the corals have recovered from the bleaching earlier in the year but quite a few of the anemones we came across were either fully bleached or partially bleached. Only time will tell if the reefs will fully recover from this bout of bleaching.

And with this, I bid you goodnight, and until the next adventure that awaits aboard MV DiveRACE~~

For....

This sign on the door of the saloon says it best, doesn't it? ^_^

Click for the rambling...

Perspectives.....

My kayaking trip at Ubin has stirred up a series of personal reflections for me... No, the photo below has no relation to the topic XD It's just that I'm more trigger-happy than a camera whore and I don't really have candid shots of me.

Have never really been a sporty person but it seems that ever since undergraduate days, I have been becoming more and more of an outdoorsy person. It is through books that I slowly grew to learn about nature, and some of the biodiversity around us. And it is with that that I develop an interest in some outdoors activities. First there were the intertidal guiding, then came diving, then treeclimbing, cycling (yar, I didn't learn how to cycle until a year or two ago), powerboating and Sunday's kayaking. It really does seem serendipitous how things have been working out in my life so far, yet I can't help but feel that it was all planned out.

It's not only the wonder of how I've come to the role in which I have with regards to nature and biodiversity but also the actual miraculousness of nature that has gotten me thinking. And it seems that now I am starting to see and open doors to new areas and perspectives of experiencing and connecting with nature. How so?

I only went to take my OW and AOW diving certification so that I could have another angle on my FYP. One thing led to another, with me learning LIT methodology, and even helping to conduct ReefCheck training for others! I know that quite a few of my diver friends picked diving up as something unusual to do, caught the bug and have been scratching the itch to get underwater every once in a while. And depending on their instructors/diving kakis, they would gradually start appreciate the marine wildlife and its environment. Yet for me it's the opposite. So from day one I was more in awe of the different kind of milieu that I found whilst diving rather than the actual diving itself.

The same thing happened with tree climbing. This time, taking the course with a bunch of fellow intertidal enthusiasts, and again, it was the chance to be up close and personal with the trees that actually got me interested in the course. Still can't tell if I'm much of a convert to tree climbing though, but this is largely due to my sporadic fear of heights. ;p

And this brings me to kayaking. Decided to give it a try as one of those "Why not?" things to do. But the trip down the mangroves did show me yet another way for me to explore the great outdoors. Not in the adventure sense, but getting close to some of the trees without the usual sloshing walk, and with the chance to just drift and listen to all those different bird calls.

And it strikes me that all one has to do is to slow down for a moment, take a deep breath and just take it all in. Especially for those of us who are blessed to be in Singapore. Just look at the amount of urbanisation and development we have had here in land scarce Singapore. Yet we have managed to keep enough of our nature spots (i.e. Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve, Central Nature Reserve, etc.), as well as have park connectors (that act as green bridges between out fragmented forests on mainland). There is still much nature around us. Maybe more in the form of urban biodiversity than actual wildlife in forests. Every once in a while I lose sight of this fact, and yet I am reminded of it time and again. What better time to have this readjusting of perspective but in the middle of the International Year of Biodiversity, eh? So, the next time you find yourself outdoors, don't be so caught up in the activity you're doing but also take time to look around, take a deep breath, and spot critters in the vicinity.

Totally off topic but seems like next year is to be the International Year of Forests! Hmmm.... So what does a divejunkie do then? XD

Click for the rambling...

"World Atlas of Marine Fauna" - First Impressions

First thought that came to mind when I first saw it on Friday during ADEX. That is a HUGE whopper of a book! Next thought after getting a copy from Ivan to do a review... This is a freakingly heavy book!

According to Amazon, this book weighs 7 pounds (approx. 3.2kg)! For a single book! o.0 Definitely worked out my arms getting this volume home!
From the weight alone, it does give a "reference book" kinda feel, and the impression that it's no featherweight like those handy field guides that are more commonplace.

Opening the cover reveals a world map with red dots indicating selected photo locations used in the book. What's thrilling to me is that SINGAPORE has a red dot on it! Now I have to go through every 725 pages looking for the photos taken here XD

With the marine animals being organized by Phylum (and depending on the organism, sometimes Class/Order/Family), it does give the layman an insight to the taxonomic relationship between the animals. Nice systematic way of putting things. In spite of the book's title being "World Atlas of Marine Fauna", it's skewed towards the non-sessile aka mobile animal groups. The sessiles such as bryzoans, sponges, and cnidarians (refers to a large number of organisms such as soft and hard corals, jellyfish, anemones, hydroids, sea fans etc.) are covered VERY briefly in the introduction and not elaborated on. Do wish that there would be a separate volume on them too! Just like the companion volume "World Atlas of Marine Fishes." Being a single volume reference book targeted at non-experts/non-scientists, it does make sense to cover the more attractive (at least to the run-of-the-mill diver/snorkeler) marine animals.

Would probably only have the opportunity to do a more thorough reading of this World Atlas over the weekend....

Click for the rambling...

SECORE workshop - setting up

A continuation from my previous post, the folks involved in the our first ever coral spawning workshop aka SECORE workshop here in Singapore came over to the Tropical Marine Science Institute facilities on St John's Island yesterday, and Manon has done up a real quick photo blog of yesterday's orientation and settling in.

Settling in including having a quick intro to TMSI, as well as round 1 of talks/presentations by the various partners. Dr Paul Erftermeijer (Deltares) gave an intro to some of the research that Deltares does, as well as the research areas that Singapore Delft Water Alliance covers. Dr Mary Hagedorn (Smithsonian Institution/HIMB) followed that with talking about some threats to coral reefs and how freezing coral sperm may help in preserving some genetic diversity. Dr Michael Laterveer (Rotterdam Zoo) wrapped up the series of talks with a summary of what was done in the previous 4 SECORE workshops that were conducted in Rotterdam and Puerto Rico.

So on to today.... Or at least the first half of the day. Our shopping crew headed back to mainland Singapore to get piping, hardware, tubing, liquid nitrogen, more drinks and snacks, etc. that would be required to tide us over the long Easter weekend as we get busy with the spawning. Here you can see one of the DBS students in discussion with Michael on setting up rearing bins for the coral babies. Our many thanks go out to Abby, Ned, Mark, Roy, and Juward who spent the morning rushing around for the stuff that we needed, especially for getting everything in time to meet the mid-day ferry back to St John's!


The other (luckier?) team went out to Kusu to get some coral colonies for spawning in the tank. (Yes, Jamie's in the back of a vehicle again XD) Hopefully Mei Lin or Siti would share what happened during the dive. We should find out further tonight if the colonies we have in the tanks spawn. Can't wait!


And what about the rest of us who stayed on at St John's? Here's Dr Mary Hagedorn looking pretty cheery as she prepares for the talk on coral reproduction and spawning that she's currently giving as I'm quickly finishing up this post. And me? I was hoping to get this out before lunch in between troubleshooting here and there. Time to give today's talks my full attention, and we still need to sort out the dive roster!

Click for the rambling...

It's that time of the year again....

I know, it's been AGES since I last put up any entry but life has been busy ;p Anyways, it's coral mass spawning time again here in the waters around this sunny island of Singapore!

Well, or at least we're expecting it to be over this coming Easter weekend. In addition to the usual tagging of spawning colonies (done by the NUS Marine Lab in DBS), there's also our first ever coral spawning/breeding/reproduction workshop that's gonna be held at the Tropical Marine Science Institute facilities here on St John's Island! This workshop in Singapore is organized by Michael Laterveer (Rotterdam Zoo, the Netherlands), Dr. James Guest (National University of Singapore), Dr. Eric Borneman (University of Houston, USA), Mark Schick (John G. Shedd Aquarium, USA), Mike Henley (Smithsonian National Zoological Park, USA), and Dr. Mary Hagedorn (Smithsonian Institution, USA) with the kind sponsorship of EcoShape.

There's an official weblog for the workshop, but since I'm part of the supporting crew of the workshop, will try and post little snippets here as well! ^_^

Click for the rambling...

Pink dolphins put on a performance at Semakau~~

(Excuse the photo-less post but such exciting events have JUST gotta happen when there are NINE divers onboard the boat, with only ONE camera... the rest of us just got desperate enough to try using our cameraphones but alas....) Anyways, if you're still interested in a photo-less account of our day out at sea with our local dolphins, do read on! Photos and vids will be posted once K! has sorted them out ^_^

We were back to using Dolphin Explorer 2 instead of the air-conditioned Explorer 1. This proved to be a good thing since Mel was shouting "Dolphin!!!" as we were approaching the nursery site at Semakau. ^_^ Open-cabin boat means that snoozing divers (such as yours truly) get the chance to shock themselves awake, look up just in time to see 1, 2, THREE!!! greyish (aka juvenile) pink dolphins just off the starboard bow of the boat! After realising that they were hanging around the area, we were kinda playing hide-n-seek with our newfound delphinium mammalian friends for an our or so. It really was a special treat for the 5 Hons. students who were out with us for their check out dives. Plus it was my third time seeing dolphins in local waters (and second time at Semakau)! ^_^ My first delphinium encounter was near St John's Island, and the second was at Semakau.

After the de-gearing and lunching, we were just starting to head back to mainland SG, and it being a nice and sunny day, the usual chit-chatting and catching up was done whilst drying off in our swimwear. Can't even remember what I was talking to Mei Lin about when I saw a grey fin pop in and out of the water. Dolphin!!! My turn to do the sudden shout! Hee~ This time the 3 (or 4) dolphins (likely to be the same ones) seemed to be riding the waves and/or boat wake. Much more playful behaviour than in the morning. They were even jumping out of the water, and "waving" to us with the flippers at some point! Pretty brilliant performance! Who needs to go for the Dolphin Lagoon show when dolphins are showing off like this in the wild. Real amazing stuff!!! Mwahaha! (apologies but I can't resist gloating~~~ ;p) And the reason why we saw dolphins TWICE in a day? Because we were on Dolphin Explorer 2!!

Oh yes. For those curious about the dive, it was relatively crap vis. Was supposed to locate and retrieve one of my missing nursery tables but we couldn't find it at all >_< Came across this drift net that went over the coral nursery, the floating nursery, coral transplant site, and all the way to the breakwater.... caught all over the corals *bah* kept having to untangle it. k! wanted to take photos/videos of it for documentation but the boatmen appeared to retrieve it before she could do so. D and I swam the entire length of it and the good news is that we only saw 5 fish (1 dead big-eyed fish, and 4 live fish - threadfin(?) butterflyfish, soapfish, common damsel, ~20cm Bleeker's parrotfish) caught in it. Bad news was that we didn't release them before the boatmen came along since we wanted k! to take photos of them....

We *did* have some excitement at the nursery as we had two young cuttlefish mothers gently laying their clutch of eggs in one of the larger Acropora sp. corals. ^_^ Kept distracting me from what we were supposed to be doing~~~ But again, no photos... It really is true that you see soooo many interesting stuff and photo chances when you DON'T have a camera....

Click for the rambling...

Off to Manado!!! (09-16 Mar)

divejunkie's long awaited dive trip is here ^_^ Flying off to Manado later, for a week of fun diving at Bunaken and Lembeh. Plus a one day visit to Tangkoko Nature Reserve.

(Photo taken by Jens Petersen, Wikimedia)
With some luck, we should be able to pop by Kasawari Resort and say 'hi' to Tony Wu and the FiNS gang ^_^ Pretty excited about the entire trip as: (1) it's the first time I would be diving out of Singapore/Malaysia, (2) been 2.5 years since I last flew, (3) it's MANADO!!! (more especially LEMBEH!!!) How can I not get excited?!? Didn't manage to get a new laptop before the trip, so even if there's decently charged internet access there, won't really be online.... So I'll see you guys when I get back next week ^__^ Meanwhile, check out Tony's blog as he tries to update from there, as well as the photos he has on Flickr~~~

Click for the rambling...

650 diving without dj TT_TT

Yes. This was the Hantu dive my A650 went to without me. Why? Because the MS camera went kuku..... And dj was stuck at home.... *lol*

Oh well. Hantu sure never fails to deliver, even if it's almost 0m vis and 24 deg! ^_^

Click for the rambling...

New Seahorse ID book available!!

Project Seahorse and TRAFFIC North America have come up with an e-book on seahorse identification. Kudos to I-NSC for the heads up ^_^

"The new guide is being distributed to Customs agents around the world to help them implement the new listing of seahorses on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It is also available here as a single PDF file."
It's a free e-book so do head over to DiveBooks.Net download your own copy too ^_^ Our local species Hippocampus comes and H.kuda are also inside, so this is definitely yet another valuable resource for guides and would-be-guides to have! dj here is all tuckered out after a relatively packed week of intertidal and underwater activities, so the book review would hafta wait until next week. Do stay tuned and get your own copy now!

EDIT: Seems like there's a bit of unwarranted direct linking to the download (without directing net traffic to the I-NSC website, so the "product page" has been taken off for now. Netizens can't seem to read in detail.... In the meantime, while waiting for the I-NSC mirror to be up again, here's the original distributor, Project Seahorse.

EDIT2: The I-NSC link on Divebooks.net is up again ^_^ Thanks once again to Ivan!!

Click for the rambling...

Liveblogging from the "Star-Studded" Echinoderm Workshop ^_^

dj is making an attempt at live blogging from the first of a series of intertidal guide training workshops organised by Leafmonkey. Ria's certainly not making this easy since she *does* tend to go on rather fast but will try my best-est to update this blog.... All the basic (and at times boring) technical bits being squished into 30 minutes, no wonder!! (Did I just hear Ria say that the seastar tube feet kinda do a ballerina-like thing when moving?)

Adelle is being my photographer since dj is busy keeping track of things here.... *heh* Thanks girl! Anyway, the turnout is a little less than the sign up number of 25. Good that we have a good mix of guides from different groups like BWV, NHC, RMBR, NParks, TSG, etc.... Nice to see unfamiliar faces from RJC in addition to the regulars who also happen to be the multi-hatted folks ^_^

Okies... Need to try and pay attention here. Part 02 of the live-blogging would have more information for those who are unable to join us ^_^ Thanks once again to monkey and Ria for getting this series of much needed training up and running!

Click for the rambling...

Happy Cephalopod Day!!

Greetings from the cephlopods!

What better day than to "launch" my new blog/website ^_^ Why have I started *yet* another blog? (The proper Cephlopod Day post is over there...) First reason being that ASHIRA started off as a personal blog, and as my life turned towards being more nature foray orientated, this blog naturally evolved into a sort of nature blog ^_^ But it's because of this that it feels that there's lack of organisation or structure here. 《海楽園の旅人》 (Umi Rakuen no Tabibito aka Traveller of the Ocean Paradise) would be my attempt to organise and present my marine outreach efforts in a more informative manner. ASHIRA would still remain my primary blog about the things I am up to, as well as anecdotal accounts of trips and all.

Secondly, it also gives me the chance to play about with Wordpress. At this point in time, I don't yet see a need to actually migrate wholesale to Wordpress. The stuff there is just gonna be less diary styled *I hope*.

Click for the rambling...

Registration for 18 Oct ReefWalk @ Kusu is now open!

It's the last day of September and unfortunately, our lovely Blue Water Volunteers website is currently down due to some IP issues. However that does mean that we're not having our usual activities! Intertidal ReefWalks @ Kusu island and Reef Check surveys with ReefFriends are still ongoing!

Sign up details are under the cut ^_^
1. Kusu ReefWalks on 18 Oct


The evening Kusu Island ReefWALKs are back. The next walk will be on 18 Oct 08 (Sat) 5.30pm - 9pm and it cost $15 per participant. To register, please email reefwalk@bluewatervolunteers.org and provide the following details:

Name:
Contact Number:
Email:
Number of participants:
Ages of children (if any):
Emergency contact details:

Should you have any queries (or would like to join us as volunteers), please email reefwalk@bluewatervolunteers.org.

Cheers,
ReefWALK Team
*****************
The last two walks for 2008 would be on 15 Nov 08 (Sat), and 14 Dec 08 (Sun). Registration details would be posted up nearer the dates.

EDIT: if you have problems contacting us with the above email, try reefwalk@gmail.com

2. ReefFriends surveys


For those of you who dive, and would like to lend a hand in collecting scientific data for the monitoring of our local reefs, please email reeffriends@bluewatervolunteers.org for more details on joining. We would be glad to have you onboard the team!

EDIT: if you have problems contacting us with the above email, try reeffriends@gmail.com

p/s. Three cheers for blogs and RSS feeds that can act as our backup(s) when things go wrong with the main site ^_^

Click for the rambling...