Reef Alert 2010 – Work, Fun and Play, 3-in-1
On the way there..
As usual, we met up at LKS Library to board our bus for Mersing Jetty in Malaysia. Everyone’s enthusiasm was rubbing onto one another as we knew that this was yet going to be another exciting weekend amidst our busy weekday schedules of summer work and internships.
Despite having been on past dive trips before, none of them felt as meaningful as Reef Alert. We are going to Dayang with a real purpose – to survey the marine life and to check its health instead of merely enjoying ourselves underwater. Beyond the depths of the seas, nobody really knows what is happening underwater, and it is our job to let others know the deteriorating condition of the reefs.
The bus journey towards Mersing was full of ups and downs – literally. The road was filled with turns that made some of us wake up from our deep sleep, disturbing our rest. Upon arrival, we had to wait until 2am for the tide to come in before the boat can leave. While some of us stoned around the jetty, the rest went to have supper. When we finally boarded the boat, all of us fell asleep on the way to Pulau Dayang.
And so it begins..
We woke up the next day afresh at 9, had a fulfilling western supper of sausages, eggs and beans and set off for our first dive site. This first dive was meant to be a revision and served as a practice session for us to try and apply what we have learnt in our lessons. We had a hands-on session to test ourselves on whether we actually recognize what we see in reality instead of photos. Basically we have to survey 3 segments – fishes, invertebrates and substrates, and all of us scored pretty well in this mini-test. Few of us were even lucky enough to catch a green turtle swim across during our descent to the seabed. It’s a sign of things to come!
We returned to camp for a chicken rice lunch, and moved out for our 2nd dive, which was our actual reef check. During this dive, we noticed the relatively weaker health of the reefs, evidenced by little fish and invertebrates reef health indicators and lots of coral rubble on the seabed. Reef degradation is caused by a multitude of reasons, such as fish bombing, overfishing, as well as global warming.
Another lucky few of us got to catch a blue spotted ray resting in a crevice, but fled when more of us tried to catch a glimpse of its beauty.
Done with the 2nd dive, we headed back to shore for our tea break of desserts and sweet potatoes. Some of us were already anticipating the fantastic buffet dinner that is served on this exotic island. We moved out again, with some of us already had “hard corals”, “giant clams” and “diadema urchins” constantly stuck in our minds. This time, all of us witnessed a huge school of barracudas parading themselves in the water. As all of us were so focused on our work, a challenge would be to spot rare creatures like the green turtle we met during the first dive.
Finally, we had our long-awaited dinner. While some of us went ahead with the exciting night dive, the rest of us did not hold back for the appetizing dinner. Among the 8 of us on land, we took 5 full plates of lamb chops, 1 full satay plate, 2 plates of honey glazed barbequed chicken wings and a plate of chilli squid, enough to satisfy the hunger of any man.
The next morning..
We woke up early at 6am, so that we can finish up our final 2 dives. This site was relatively better, with reef health condition better than the previous. Lucky peeps saw another blue-spotted ray. Zzz.
Zeehan, our marine biologist commended our efforts for the reef check, and said that the few checks we did should contain enough information for our survey. Thus, as a reward we had a leisure dive just before we head back to civilization. Our last dive site was the famous whale look-alike rock called Rayner’s Rock. At the right times, we would be able to see the black-tip shark and more turtles. We did not chance upon one, but we saw an enormous Humphead Parrotfish, which was probably at least 50-60cm in length. It is one of the positive reef health indicators that we were supposed to look for. Other than the parrotfish, we saw a Triggerfish that was trying to protect its territory from Cedric, who was naturally intimidating in size to all of us. Lol. Up and in between the rocks, we tried to locate dugongs, whalesharks, rays and sharks but to no avail. As the divers always say, “You see what you see, you don’t see means you don’t see.” This means that if you’re that lucky to see it, you will see it, if not its just dumb luck.
My Thoughts
Although I’ve only been diving for the past year, it is clear that the marine life is not what I had expected. The beautiful shoals of fish that are broadcasted over advertisements are merely few of the footages that some lucky divers shot. Although Pulau Dayang is famous for its reefs, what I saw was not the many schools of fish and beautiful corals, but a seemingly dying and unpopulated marine life, which was once abundant according to the Divemasters and instructors. There is no point getting emotional over what’s been done – but I believe our focus should be on what we ought to do to save these reefs.
Oh well, this marks the end of Reef Alert 2010, and it has been a fruitful one. All of us gave in our best be it the challenge of counting fishes, navigating up and down in between cracks and crevices to find reef health indicators and carefully maintaining buoyancy on the seabed to check out the substrates. But what we learnt most from Reef Alert 2010 is the importance of marine conservation. Every organism in the sea contributes to the ecosystem in the sea and every little thing we do on land, e.g. asking for an extra plastic bag, turning on the air-con, consuming sharks fins or even releasing balloons into the air, can result in adverse effects on the marine environment. It is important for us to be aware about these issues and do our part in conserving the environment.
Wait a minute; we still have an exhibition to conduct! We’ll keep everyone updated on our Reef Alert exhibition, till then!
Written by:
Terence Ho
Participant
Reef Alert 2010
