Salted & Fried

LOGFRAME ASSIGNMENT!

2007-01-18T23:14:00.000+08:00

I GOT THE RESULT FOR MY LOGFRAME ASSIGNMENT! WHOOHOO HAHAHA well obviously from the sound of that, it's gotta be good! haha... 22/25 and so far highest in my class (there's this other girl who got same mark as me...pfft)... 88% COOLS! =) This will hopefully cover some marks if I didn't do as well for my GIS, PRIMER and ECOPATH assignments.... oof...

BTW, meet ROBIN (dressed as the mad dentist during halloween last year):

Show me the stars!

2006-12-07T20:26:00.000+08:00

Disappointing starry sky but the view of the full moon and the sea during low tide more than makes up for it... In the cold cold cold british winter weather...

Logframe assignment over and done!!!

2006-11-21T02:51:00.000+08:00

YAY!!! LOGFRAME ASSIGNMENT OVER AND DONE!!!! YAYY...
Now only have:

1) Statements of relevances for Nick Polunin & Grant Burgess
DUE - 22nd Nov

2) Library project - "Factors influencing hermatypic scleractinian coral settlement & recruitment: a review & synthesis"
DUE - 27th Nov

3) Multivariate statistics assignment (PRIMER)
DUE - 4th Dec (DEADLINE WAS EXTENDED YES!)

4) Draft research project proposal
DUE - 11th Jan

5) GIS assignment
DUE - 22nd Dec (Have to finish this before I leave for Egypt on 14th Dec)

6) ECOPATH assignment
DUE - 8th January

7) Exam for Critical appraisal of coastal production systems
ON - tentatively 18th Jan

OH... AND I WILL BE GOING TO DIVE RED SEA FROM THE 14th - 28th DEC!!!!!!! HOW COOL IS THAT!!!! 115pds for 10 days of diving!!!! MAN!!!! WOOHOO CAN'T WAIT!

Exhausted.

2006-11-14T00:39:00.000+08:00

I am so exhausted. I think I need to just be antisocial and sleep for the next few days. Oh and of course continue doing my work... but definitely I am NEVER doing last minute work again..... ARGGHH.... That's what I say now, but of course it'll happen again...

I have a friend who's a cook

2006-11-11T19:56:00.000+08:00

AND IT'S GREAT! Especially since my speciality is BURNING stuff EVERY SINGLE DAY in the grill.... Yes, I burn my toast and pita EVERY DAY. Sometimes it just turns black and I'd have to throw the top layer off hahaha... aw man! YAY! And he's cooking LAKSA TODAY!!! I AM SO FREAKING HAPPY!!!! Since I don't think I'd even attempt to cook anything like that... haha... green curry is about the max I'd go man... LAKSAAAAAAAAAAA........!!!!!!!

What does your birthday mean?

2006-11-09T05:21:00.000+08:00

Your Birthdate: May 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others.
Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you're just too likeable to elicit jealousy.
Progressive and original, you're usually thinking up cutting edge ideas.
Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges.

Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower

Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom

Your power color: Tangerine

Your power symbol: Ace

Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

I can only hope this is true... because I'm so screwed with the amount of work I have to get done these next 2 weeks...

It's a sigh day.

2006-11-08T05:50:00.000+08:00

Hais. Such a sigh day today. Miss home. Miss my cats. Miss all of you. Miss the food. Miss my bed. Miss terrorising MOS burger counter staff on friday nights. Miss hanging out at the pantry. Miss screaming chee kueh. Miss diving. AND THE SEA! =( Miss water. Miss the feeling of being underwater. Miss my coral babies. Miss the sun. Miss the boatmen's assam pedas... miss being on the boat. =( SNIFFS.

HALLOWEEN

2006-10-29T10:53:00.000+08:00

Halloween party was great... awesome... but oh my gawd.. the mess.... argh!!!

Settling in...

2006-10-10T00:31:00.000+08:00

I think I am finally settling in... not so much of trying to get my room and my flat and my food to be exactly like Singapore's... Having more fun with my flat mates now... went to see HOGWARTS... well the castle they filmed HARRY POTTER 1 & 2 in... and had Canadian Thanksgiving dinner last night... cooked a ROAST CHICKEN WITH STUFFING! It's amazingly easy... AND going to have a HALLOWEEN party later this month... am so looking forward to that! =)

Still having the same amount of assignments though... there's another one added to the pile just now... argh... sigh... Good thing is... This term we are covering statistics... something which I am very interested in and have some experience... so it's not SO BAD doing my stats assignments wahaha...=)

STRESSSSSSSSSSSSS

2006-10-04T01:19:00.000+08:00

GAWD.... FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL AND OUT POPS AN ASSIGNMENT... to write a 5000word literature review on any topic we want to related to TROPICAL COASTAL MANAGEMENT. It sounds cool but it's so STRESSFUL - especially for someone so indecisive about things. I can't decide WHAT TO DO!!! THERE'S SO MANY THINGS!!! Should I play it safe and go back to similar topics I've worked on previously? Or should I go and venture out and do something totally different and explore! MAN... It's so ARGH... I DUNNO WHAT TO DO AND WHERE TO LOOK FOR!! Everyone else in my class seems to have like a set goal and focus... and a nice cool cheam sounding project... Haiz... I lack confidence to venture out of my comfort area but I feel like if I don't do it now, I think I might be stuck with it for some time... haiz... well, I could get this MSc done with and then move on to something else for my PhD... but what are the chances right? ARGHHHHH DECISIONS DECISIONS...

The worst part is... I spewed out 3 ideas for projects yesterday and I told my lecturer I didn't know which one to pick. They were:

1) Factors involved in measuring natural coral reef recovery
2) Comparing various reef restoration techniques (cost-effectiveness, suitability etc)
3) Impact of the dive industry on coral reefs

My lecturer point blank said "it's not a coincidence that the first 2 project topics is related to your boss is it?". HAIZ. He suggested I do the third one. I guess it is interesting enough... COMMENTS COMMENTS???

Then this guy came up to me after class today and asked which of the 3 I was going to do, because if I'm not doing the diver impact one, he wants to take it up! I was like... errr errr errr... I haven't decided yet... and told him I'd give hiim something maybe by tomorrow... ARGH... STRESS. But there's so many things to do! Like I can't decide whether to do projects on:

- factors involved in coral settlement and recruitment
- sedimentation and loss of corals
- impact of dive resorts on marine conservation
- conservation of urban reefs (e.g. like singapore's reefs... hongkong's reefs, some of australia's reefs etc)

Haiz, so many things HOW... input input anyone? Suggestions? Should I do on something I already know about and familiar with and already for sure know I am interested in or should I try do something new and novel and I am interested on from what little I know?

Sounds like a dream assignment but I have to figure out a FOCUS. Something which I have never really been good at.

Help.

SHOPPIINNNGGG!!! & Giant mushrooms

2006-10-01T20:05:00.000+08:00

First shopping trip to Royal Quays, at the outskirt of Newcastle... COOLS... look what I bought! I know I know so sinful... But I have not spent much on food nowadays (especially with the free food we've been getting hur hur hur):

1) BOOTS

2) DRESS

3) SHOES

4) NICE FLUFFY SLEEPING SOCKS (reminds me of Dr. Seuss!)

Also MUSHROOMS HERE ARE SO CHEAP!

I got 1 crate of GIANT WHITE MUSHROOMS FOR 1 POUND! They taste exactly like white button mushrooms only they're a tad larger than normal... ah who am I kidding... they're HUGE!!

And here's a photo of my flatmate and another innovative use of giant mushrooms besides EATING them (they taste great the normal BBQ way... I put them in the oven instead and they're WONDERFUL!!! mmmMMmmmm). I still have like a whole bag of them still... the crate was about 40cm by 30cm? Cheapest thing I can think of here are mushrooms for now... I mean compared to Singapore! WOW! Amazing!

WOW... MUSHROOMS... Haha... CHEAP CHEAP!! MMMMMM They're cheaper than... CARROTS... and cheaper than GARLIC... and cheaper than TOUFU~! (2 squares of toufu costs 70pence).

SCHOOL... REALITY...

2006-09-27T04:54:00.000+08:00

I met my course tutors and lecturers and course mates for the first time today! And I like realised how blardi PACKED MY TIMETABLE IS... IT'S CRAZY.. .I HAVE LESSONS EVERYDAY MONDAY - FRIDAY 9 - 4/5pm!!!!!! And this is excluding like outside stuff they are encouraging us to take like presentation skills, writing skills, language etc... CV writing and more! WAHLAU... looks like there's gonna be NO TIME for anything else boi... YES, might not even have time for... MAHJONG...M.A.H.J.O.N.G.!
ARGHHHHH!!!!

But today was fun! I met JAMES! YES! JAMES GUEST! It was GREAT to see a familiar face haha... very fun indeed... haha. I think he left for Singapore today... so if you guys see him there in the lab, tell him don't forget send me list of possible projects he thinks needs/can be done in Philippines. I think I might want to just go and do it there. It's a change from Singapore and it'll be fun! Alternatively, if TL can think of some project branch off from hers, then can go to Wilmington. She's emailed me like links of where to get funding for if I wanna do research in the US... HAHA! Boi that will be so fun man! See how... they'll be assigning me a project supervisor based on the KEYWORDS we come up with for what we want in our project. SO FUN.

The course is structured SO WELL! I cannot believe how well it is planned man! I can't describe it to you but you feel like they're REALLY here to TEACH you and like give you like MILLION AND ONE OPPORTUNITIES and help you open doors! SO UNLIKE IN SINGAPORE!!!! Well, maybe not ALL institutions/places of learning in Singapore... And they're really bringing in many many pple to come teach and talk to us etc... it's so cool!

I'm so excited to get started with the course but also a bit scared because it seems like there's so much to study! There are only 16 pple in my course! It's such a small class and I am the only ASIAN there... and there are only THREE non-british students (1 other ITALIAN, and another African).

There was free LUNCH today too... so yummy... I was stuffing my face with sandwiches and chips and apples and orange juice so I won't have to eat anything else haha...

But it has been a tiring day... I started at 9am and only ended at 4pm. Got back home and went online then crashed for 15min before my cooking mates arrived. We had fried rice and Lia cooked chicken marinated in honey and soy sauce (YUMMY STUFF) and BANANA MILKSHAKE! MMMMM.... then we sat around learning bits of french and german with one of my flatmates (who insisted we eat apples to keep healthy). Everyone's really nice here and I think am lucky to have really nice flatmates... =)

And my coursemates are really nice too they keep asking me the same questions again and again though so I feel like getting an FAQ sheet out and pasting it on myself. I pasted SINGAPORE big big on my shirt cos pple kept asking me where I am from hahaha...

OH and the university welcome held yesterday was actually done by an NZ entertainer who juggled and escaped from a strayjacket and role-played and spoke in diff accents while telling us about the rules and regulations and services of the uni... HAHAHAHA... MAN... it was SO COOL. First time I've seen this and it's MAN EFFECTIVE. Because everyone was actually paying attention to him and not snoring and sleeping! Like BEST USE of multi media to bring across points that would otherwise prolly be delivered in a super boring way if it were in NUS.

So far so good. I like the NCL uni. =)

MAHJONG & FREE FOOD!

2006-09-25T05:17:00.000+08:00

Today... I found... MAHJONG KAKIs! Thanks to Jeff's pressie of mini mini mahjong set, I managed to get my mahjong fix for the week! HAHAHA.... well not necessarily for the week lah... but enough... for now... ahhaa!

We taught 3 other people to play mahjong and my flat mates also want to learn how to play!!!!! HOW COOL IS THAT!!! Too bad the tiles Jeff gave me were missing like 4 flowers (i.e. got 1 set of flowers instead of 2... I had to make a set of the animals from the spare tiles). There was also no "white dragon" or the "window" so had to use the spare tiles to make that one also... haha so now we're making do playing with just 18 x 4 tiles. ANYTHING LAH AS LONG AS CAN PLAY ALREADY GOOD ENUFF! haha! (BTW, the guy on the left in the photo is the one that looks like my BRO! Dun u thk dun u thk????)

I won with the LAST TILE today... hahaha so cool. We haven't started playing with points yet (yes, points, because I don't think any of us can afford the $$ haha...) but we should do so when we settle on the "redeemable items" e.g. massage, getting someone to buy groceries, washing the dishes, doing the laundry etc...

Well, other than mahjong the most exciting thing that happened today was the FREE FOOD I got at the MOSQUE! Me and Lia (the other muslim girl) went to walk to the mosque to get free food. They're giving free food throughout this whole Ramadhan period! And they gave us like enough food to last a week! I got like 2 HUGE packets of rice and like 3 packets of chicken curry thing... and kurma and canned drinks! I felt kinda bad... not only becos I did not fast today... but also becos we were the ONLY 2 GIRLS there asking for food! Like there weren't ANY OTHER GIRLS around! And we had to wear our HOODS to enter the mosque grounds cos they required us to cover our hair (urgh!). They're very nice though... they kept asking us whether we wanted more food when they gave us like 3 whole plastic bags worth of food... I don't mind helping out with the cooking if I'm free. But I think my apetite's seriously gone down, cos I don't eat as much as I used to... I guess the company's different too and the food's different as well... good, maybe can lose weight.

It took us 2 HOURS to walk to the mosque and back... TWO HOURS... man! But the walk was quite nice albeit a tad cold... Abby would have loved it though.. because on the way there and back... there were HUGE FIELDS... and in the HUGE FIELDS... there were lots and lots of... YES! COOOWWSS!!!! MOOOO!!!!

HAHAHA... Today, there was also the Newcastle vs. Everton football match at St Jame's Park stadium... and I can SEE THE STADIUM from my room (it's a bit far and hazy, but there you have it!). There were people in black and white attire EVERYWHERE... and then later on, there were people playing DODGEBALL (yes! DODGEBALL like in the movie!) in like basketball areas... hahaha...

Sure is an interesting place Newcastle... so far so good... Tomorrow induction will start and I will have to go pick my modules and see my tutor. My classes will probably start the week after next and I have to write my project proposal before end of October so it sure is going to be very packed!

Something wrong with my RAM slot

2006-09-24T14:33:00.000+08:00

There's something wrong with my RAM slot on my MAC!!!!!!!! It's only reading the RAM from only 1 slot instead of the 2 that's available for the Mac Powerbook G4! ARGH!!! I was running on 256MB RAM ONLY instead of the 1.25GB RAM I am suppose to have!

Spent half and hour talking to the Apple Support pple on the phone to figure out whether I can do anything to fix it myself... And the conclusion was I have to take it down the an Apple Service Centre! IN NEWCASTLE?!?!?! Was doing and internet search and found 1 way way out of town! Do you think they will accept Macs not purchased in the UK? I am still on Apple Care but if I were to wait until I come back to Singapore, my Apple Care will expire... sigh... Any advice anyone?

Even bought a screwdriver set to fiddle around with the RAM slots. I switched slots for my 256MB RAM and 1GBRAM and now my Powerbook says it's running on 1GB RAM only. Not that I can't live without the other 256MB RAM, but if the other slot happens to GO, then I can't use my Pbook at all! So better to get it fixed early right?

Wild bunnies!

2006-09-24T05:46:00.000+08:00

I was walking home just now back from a trip to see the river Tyne at night and err... of cos... a short stopover at a local pub for a beer... and GUESS WHAT I SAW!!!! THERE WERE BUNNIES... YES... REAL... BUNNIES... RUNNING AROUND IN THE FIELD NEXT TO WHERE I LIVE!!! LIKE STRAY CATS IN SINGAPORE... ONLY... BUNNIES!!!!! Muffy would've liked it there...

WILD BUNNIES!

Of cos there were also the "bunnies" around town... the freshers week consists of pple dressing up as either fairies, bunnies, pirates or cowboys... It was quite a sight to see all these young ones dressing up for what we would have called "orientation week". Some of them were wearing SOOO LITTLE... and I swear it's really cold already now! Especially at night!

I wanted to take photos... this time... I brought my camera... but I left my CF card at home because I took it out to download photos I took previously... sigh... It's not fated... The river Tyne is very nice at night... I will share some photos Nancy and the others took when they get around to passing it to me.

Also, did I mention, 1 of the Singaporean student looks SOOOOO much like my BROTHER! Like he's also a bit short, not very skinny, got dimples, and LOOKS AND ACTS LIKE MY BRO! (No, he does not have one eye if some of you are wondering...)

Here in Newcastle...

2006-09-23T22:32:00.000+08:00

OK OK here's a blog!!! haha... wahliew... I promised Abby I'd blog about my trip to chinatown but I... FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA so I couldn't take any photos... Instead, I will blog about my flat and my room and my flatmates!

My flat is a self catered postgraduate housing and am sharing 1 floor with 4 other flatmates. All girls. The other 2 floors are apparently all guys. 2 of my flatmates are Taiwanese (Taipei), 1 is from America (Colorado) and the other is from Canadia (Toronto). They're all taking rather art-sy fart-sy subjects like Translational English and Art galleries and museum studies and Heritage Studies and Counselling... so have a feeling I am the only geek around.

Anyway, THIS is my room before I cleaned it up this morning:

And THIS is after I vacuumed it and neatened it up this morning (I woke up at 6.30am!):

My room has 2 windows. The view I have to say is great... One overlooks the street and I LOVE the buildings here... they're all so pretty! My whole flat looks exactly like this building across the street:

The other window has a nice TREE VIEW... And sometimes nice birds will come perch there in the morning... But I dunno what birds they are! Maybe I should take up a little bit of birding... hmmm

Right outside my room is the TOILET, the SHOWER AND! Importantly, the KITCHEN. How convenient huh:

The hallway:

The kitchen:

The toilet:

The shower:

FOOD FOOD FOOD in my cupboards!

Food in my fridge:

Well that's my house!!! I hope to be able to start cooking tonight! I got almost everything I need except for FORKS... but I have a pair of chopsticks so I think it'll be OK. Tomorrow PUASA IS STARTING!!! ARGHH!!! But the good news is... the MOSQUE is giving away FREE FOOD FOR BUKA PUASA!!! WOOOWOWOWOWOW... hahaha! Have to go check it out man... hur hur hur

Today the streets were FULL of baskers of all sorts... there were pple on stilts... native red indians playing their native music in full costume... there were pple preaching and carrying signboards saying that the world is gonna end... pple singing in the streets... a live concert going on... and basically lively weekend scene... too bad I forgot to bring my camera. I'll go back down to town next weekend... or tomorrow and take photos if they're still around... My flat is so near to town! It's about 400m from the Metro station and 1km from town centre (the monument... go see photo of the monument at MY FLICKR ACCOUNT).

I got myself lost in town and stumbled across a diving shop! MAN the diving is SOOOO EXPENSIVE... it's like 30pounds for 2 dives and you have to get yourself registered with them for 25pounds and rental of gear is a BOMB... really... it costs 20pounds to rent a 7mm wetsuit... CRAZY! The waters in summer is about 17degrees... 7mm wetsuit ain't gonna cut it for me dude... there goes my hopes of trying out cold water diving...

Haiz, I miss my friends back in Singapore... we've got such a routine worked out and get things done so fast and so fun... and know what each other thinking so no need feel so awkward. I think for sure making lasting friendship is harder to do as you get older...

Where did all the time go!!??!

2006-09-17T01:59:00.000+08:00

Did I say 11 more days?? THAT FELT LIKE YESTERDAY! ARGH! Leaving TOMORROW IS LIKE... ARGH... For some reason it all still feels surreal... I'm probably going to get hit by tsunami pangs of missing everyone and everything back home... All I can do now is just look forward and cross my fingers REAL HARD... Hope I don't miss packing anything into my luggage or my box...

Leaving for UK

2006-09-07T15:42:00.000+08:00

Leaving for my studies in UK finally! I can't wait to go... and I can't wait to get out. Still a million things to settle and there's only 11 more days! ARGH!

NO-"AH-dea': Ignorance is NOT bliss

2006-04-13T10:44:00.000+08:00

The minutes of the meeting is available online HERE. More comments about the NOAH HERE. EVERYTHING else that discusses the Project NOAH is HERE.

Now. Go read them all. Get your background knowledge right. Research, before you embark on anything else. As the title of this blog entry suggests, ignorance...contrary to popular belief...is NOT bliss. In fact, it's rather painful. Especially for the people who have to witness the ignorance! OH, the horror!

The NSS Conservation Chat last night became an open session for nature groups to come and discuss Project NOAH. The Singapore Underwater Federation (SUF, represented by Stephen Beng), Singapore Environment Council (SEC, represented by Howard Shaw) and individual Sydney Chew. Sydney WHO? You ask? Well, a lot of people was also very unsure who he represented. Joseph Lai started the questions and answer session rolling by asking just that... WHO ARE YOU and WHAT DO YOU DO and WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, SYDNEY CHEW. Asked for his "credentials", Sydney responded that he is a "dive instructor" who loves the marine environment and "is in the construction business".

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ON: WHO IS SYDNEY CHEW

If you were just wondering what sort of an answer was that, we ALL were! IT WAS A MEETING WITH NATURE GROUPS for goodness sake! As sure as I am that the tempeh is made of fermented soy beans, I believe the answer that we were all looking for was who he respresents and what has he done for the marine environment in Singapore. I think these questions were finally answered in the course of the Q&A and this is what I can gather:

Sydney Chew was at the meeting and represents himself, as the person who came up with the "concept" that is Project NOAH. His contribution to the marine environment lie solely on his involvement in setting up mooring buoys at P. Hantu as the president of SUF years back.

Tempeh says:
Now, if you have read the Hantu Blog you'd know that he in fact owns a one-man company, AQUOS Pte Ltd. What AQUOS is about, does or aims to do is uncertain. There is no public information about it, and was not mentioned at all during the meeting (eventhough AQUOS is somehow involved in Project NOAH and I feel is how Sydney Chew is officially linked to Project NOAH). Now, the mooring buoys at P. Hantu. Yes, I think the mooring buoys idea was a good one. I think that proper mooring buoys at P. Hantu will be an asset. NOTE the WILL BE. Why? BECAUSE THERE ARE NO SUCH MOORING BUOYS AT HANTU NOW! Yes, Sydney Chew helped in setting the buoys up, but what of the maintenance! As Debby Ng remarked, "How do you expect to take care of a reef when you can't even maintain mooring buoys at Hantu." Which is very true. If you can't even maintain mooring buoys, non-living objects, how do you expect to upkeep a whole ECOSYSTEM?

OUCH

ON: WHAT IS PROJECT NOAH AND DIVING IN SINGAPORE

OK. So, anyway, WHO Sydney Chew is (although still not very clear) we now roughly know. Ex-president of SUF. A dive instructor. Lover of the marine environment. And in the construction business.

I know there have been lots of things out there already that explains what Project Noah is. But here, I am going to go through it again... for this is what I have noted from on Sydney Chew's presentation. It seems that Project NOAH is a project to create a CLEAR WATER sanctuary for the corals in Singapore, and provide CLEAR WATER diving for divers...at the lagoon of P. Hantu. HOW exactly this is to be done? Noone knows, not even the leaders of this project. It is apparently just a "CONCEPT". "Something that all of us can AIM for". "The technology exists (to create clear waters), even for the underwater world (Underwater World Sentosa - UWS)". "And there is a market" for project NOAH. This project has "economic and social" value". This project is "to improve our bounty in life".

When asked WHY Pulau Hantu was earmarked for the site of this artificial "natural clear water reef", the answer was that P. Hantu was the perfect site as it is dived very often. And there is NO other place where this clear water santuary can be created - Sydney Chew welcomes ideas. He then mentions that there are only TWO dive sites open to divers in Singapore - P. Hantu and P. Jong. And that Sisters' Islands were closed to the public and hence not divable.

Tempeh says:
There is SO many things wrong with this answer I don't even know WHERE to begin. First of all, re-creating a clear water environment in the lagoon at P. Hantu has NOTHING "natural" about it. In face, it is SO artificial and goes against almost all things that marine conservationists believe in. The CONCEPT was to relocate corals into the lagoon, filter the sand/silt out of the water in the lagoon. I said WAS because MAN this CONCEPT just keeps CHANGING! NOW, apparently, there are no plans to relocate corals into the lagoon and SEC "does not want to dredge/dig up the lagoon" to deepen it. Now, the stand SEEMS to be to ENHANCE whatever is already is inside the lagoon. My question now is DO THEY EVEN KNOW WHAT IS INSIDE THE LAGOON???? How is it possible to ENHANCE the life inside the lagoon if they don't even know what is in there? I don't think they know because if they have SEEN what life is not within the lagoon, they would not have had the initial plan of dredging/digging up the lagoon in the first place! Man that lagoon's teeming with life! LIFE that is suited to the intertidal lagoon habitat! LIFE that has re-stablished itself since the lagoon between P. Hantu Kechil and Besar was reclaimed/made in the 1970s.

If now their plan is to ENHANCE this life within the lagoon (now without relocation of organisms into the lagoon and/or dredging/digging up the lagoon), PLEASE let us know HOW. Or even WHY? Is it even worth the millions and millions of dollars (of taxpayers' money) involved to ENHANCE what is already enhancing itself? And then MAINTAINING that ENHANCEMENT??? For something that is slowly but steadily establishing a foothold in the lagoon and surviving very well, thank you very much? Is it that NECESSARY???? Is this something we all really want to "AIM" for? A CONCEPT that has, in my humble opinion, NOTHING FOR it?

If the final aim of this project NOAH is to ENHANCE the lagoon at Hantu (i.e. future phases of the project)... then here's my argument, here's an alternative that I wish to bring forward:
Want to ENHANCE something? Why not ENHANCE already created semi-enclosed coastal areas already out there. Why do you need to create ANOTHER semi-enclosed environment when there are so many already in Singapore? We have so many PORTS and MARINAS which are in NEED of enhancement. Strike up a deal with a Marina/Port, try to enhance the waters in these areas, make it clearer, enhance the marine life... in exchange for an area where people can come and dive at and view marine life! TADAAA... ALTERNATIVE. The port/marina gets a good name for supporting conservation and clear waters... while NOAH gets to have an area for clear-water diving (with added deeper waters for diving) and have something to TRULY enhance. Plus, it would boost Singapore's name in the global arena... imagine... "One of the world's busiest port has clear waters and rich marine life integrates diving, education and awareness of the marine environment".

Tempeh says:
Sydney Chew claims he loves the coral reefs in Singapore and wants to do something for it. A dive instructor, ex-president of SUF. SUGGESTS that he has dived all over Singapore. So, I don't know what compelled him to say that there are only TWO dive sites (P. Hantu and P. Jong) in Singapore open to public???!? And that Sisters' Islands are no longer open to the public for diving as it is CLOSED???!?! WHERE DOES HE GET ALL THIS INFORMATION?! DID HE EVEN COME PREPARED FOR THE MEETING??!? So if he thinks this, then am I to assume that he has only dived at TWO sites in Singapore? And to say this in front of marine nature groups?!? Who have done surveys and is conducting leisure dive guiding sessions to variuos other reefs in Singapore besides P. Hantu and P. Jong (INCLUDING Sisters' Islands)???!?! OH THE IGNORANCE! Please see The Blue Tempeh blog for a list of divable dive sites in Singapore. PLEASE.

ON AIM OF PROJECT NOAH

Sydney Chew also comments on how he "sees us out there" doing what we do for the marine environment and how it's all very commendable. Does he? REALLY? REALLY SEE US out there? Or even KNOW what we are doing out there? APPARENTLY NOT! Another question that was asked was - What was the AIM of having a clear water lagoon? i.e. Aim of project NOAH. And who will benefit from having this clear-water "santuary". Since if it is for DIVING, won't there is a limited community that will be able to appreciate the "new lagoon"? The answer given was that this "new lagoon" will be a tool for marine conservation by showcasing marine life to the public which is much needed. "To bring the public out there". The response from the audience was "WE ARE ALREADY BRINGING THE PUBLIC OUT THERE! PUBLIC GUIDED WALKS ARE FULLY BOOKED FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS AHEAD. REEFWALK HAS TAKEN OVER A THOUSAND PEOPLE OUT TO KUSU ISLAND AND CHEK JAWA EVEN MORE!".
Sydney: What about the kids?
Audience: Yeeeeesss... the kids too!
Sydney: Getting them hands on and dirty?
Audience: Yeeesss... hands on and experiencing the marine life out there!
Audience: *Collective sigh*
Audience: There are also people afraid of swimming/water who will be cut out of the whole equation. In the press release, it was also mentioned that to visit the island people will have to leave from the new marina at 1 degree 15 at Sentosa, which is a posh-tosh place for really rich people. How will this "new lagoon" send messages of marine conservation to the general public out there, the uncle and aunties and kids?
RESPONSE: *AWKWARD SILENCE*

SYDNEY CHEW has ovbviously NOT been out there. He has NOT done his research as to what exactly has been done and is being done out there. PLUS, Zeehan was mistaken for ME by a member of the Project NOAH. This is actually nothing lah, who am I right... BUT MAN... THIS....*THIS* happened.

Person X (of Indian origin): You know Sydney, as you speak, I can see the smoke rising from your head. (in response to Sydney trying to justify his less than informed comments).
Sydney: (says nothing CONCRETE in defence to the remark given, but asks...) EXCUSE ME, ARE YOU SIVA?
Audience: *gasps in horror* and then *cracks up*

Why you ask? BECAUSE... if you don't know SIVA, who is one of the most active people in the conservation scene in Singapore, then you must DEFINITELY not have done your research. SIVA is almost like a celebrity out there and he's UNMISTAKABLE. Person X is actually Mr. Anand Balan. Please see below for a photo comparison... just in case you think that they might look alike and can therefore be easily mistakable for one another.

OK, I think this entry is getting VERY VERY long. And it is now almost 4am and I will be diving tomorrow at, just so happens, P. Hantu (for a, just so happens, coral reef survey). So, as much as I would LOVE to go on telling you about the discussion, I fear I must save it for tomorrow. But just to share what I will be rambling on about tomorrow, here are the topic headings:

ON: PROJECT NOAH PRESS RELEASE

ON: JOINING HANDS TO AIM FOR PROJECT NOAH and ON "TOGETHER-NESS"

ON: THE UPCOMING BIODIVERSITY CENSUS OF P. HANTU

ON: WHAT IS TO BE EXPECTED NOW

Abby "wants fat"...

2006-03-30T15:07:00.000+08:00

Keeping track of...

2006-01-01T21:58:00.000+08:00

Commence count - 26th Sept '05

Instant & kopishop coffees: ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ IIII
Spinelli's: ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~
Coffee Bean:
Starbucks: I
Miscellaneous: ~~IIII~~ II

Total no. of shots: ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ ~~IIII~~ I

Last update: 8 Nov 2005

East Africa!

2005-12-16T23:55:00.000+08:00

Hmm... no time to blog about this just yet. Will probably just transfer what I wrote in my travel journal here some day soon (soon soon... I hope). Flying off to Hokkaido in a couple of days. Still have work to rush through! Am back to just do more WORK! Well at least, another holiday albeit it being a family one. And a TOUR. I can imagine the tour guide... speaking indecipherable chinese. Ah Sohs and Ah Peks in the tour bus. Well hopefully the sites and sounds will be something to experience.

Anyway, haven't finished editing the Africa photos just yet. But what has been processed, is up HERE. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH LAND BEFORE! LAND LAND LAND AND MORE LAND. A SEA OF LAND!

Contemplating the mountain

Falling more and more in love with the terrestrial environment. Dammit. XJ was right. It IS addictive.

More things left to do...

2005-11-24T19:36:00.001+08:00

Things I have left to do before I leave... THIS COMING WEDNESDAY!!! ARGHHHHH 1 MORE WEEK!!! How to do all these!!!!

1) ~~Re-enter data from REU-Natural Substrate project (a consequence of the mac crash, raw data backed up but not processed one...sigh)~~
2) ~~Run REU-NS data through statistics (PRIMER)~~
3) Write up abstract of REU-NS project for January REEFRES meeting
4) ~~Take photos of the nubbins~~
5) ~~Process nubbin photos so send to Lucia~~
6) ~~Accounts for Lucia's expenditure incurred from her stay here~~
7) Accounts for my own REEFRES WP
8) Project progress report (REEFRES WP10)
9) Confirm with ~~Orchard Parade Hotel~~ Copthorne Orchid Hotel for meeting in January
10) ~~Send out reminder for abstracts to UK, Philippines and Thailand (submit to myself & Jacob Douek)~~
11) Fill in Wai/Juanhui on boat booking & diving procedures
12) Order chemicals for Juanhui for fixing her cubes/DNA extraction/PCR etc
13) PACK BAG FOR KILIMANJARO
14) Buy fleece, wallet (Planet traveller) & neck gaiter (Adventure 21)
15) Analyse remaining tiles and run data through some stats

ARGHHHHHHHHH.................. At least... I've got nice nice results and graphs from the REU-NS project... heh. 2 year's worth of data... Mmm... time flies eh...

Accepted.

2005-11-13T22:18:00.000+08:00

Well, good to know I'm not a reject after all. Hehe. After all that waiting, finally got an offer letter for Newcastle Uni Tropical Coastal Management MSc. HAPPINESS. Well, I should be...Right? So many things to do and so many things happening now that there's no time to really sit down and let the joy sink in.

Diving today at Hantu. Managed to squeeze in 10min of diving. The vis was STUNNING! 4m! And bright... the colours were so vibrant! Lots of salps in the waters today.

Feeling the stress of everything having to be somewhat wrapped up in the next two weeks before Kilimanjaro. Looking forward to escaping to Africa for a while. Especially after having to do DNA EXTRACTION (ARCK!) this coming Tuesday. My GAWD. What was I thinking! Diving tomorrow to set down tiles. I think Wednesday will have to wrap up the remaining tiles in the lab and run the results through some stats on Thurs, before Reef Walk training at Labrador at 5pm. Have to settle admin and hotels for the meeting in January, and consolidate participants' details. BWV RF Explore list needs to be out for those who went for today's checkuot dive. Also need to transfer $ back to those who didn't meet the high standards we set.

This saturday is probably the only free weekend day before I leave for Kilimanjaro. More diving to do. ARGH PHOTOS OF NUBBINS FOR LUCIA! Admin work for claims! Work hours claims for the assistants! *STRESS* Ok... this will probably a reminder for myself as to how much I have to do within these 2 weeks.

I don't see myself having a life the next 2 weeks. Well...maybe some... heh

Moodswings...

2005-11-11T00:08:00.000+08:00

Apparently... THIS is possible...

A friend of mine recently told me that he is quite scared if he were to work under/for me. And that I can be quite scary when it comes to work. This isn't true, is it? The topic came about when we were talking about female/male bosses, and how female bosses have the tendancy to have moodswings. I beg to differ since guys have the male version of PMS too, and working for male bosses means you will have to attend to male egos.

Another interesting gender topic was brought up by a student of mine. She asked why almost everyone (with the exception of one guy and the prof and the teaching fellow) in the lab are GIRLS. All the ones directly handling projects are girls! And it was us 11 girls at the peak of things last year... Found it rather interesting too. Is it because they just aren't really suited or committed to this kind of work? Or is it because our lab culture doesn't support nurture of males in the lab? Wai thinks that the latter is not true because working in a lab-full of girls would mean better news for the guy, right? But I think the girls in the lab aren't what you call "normal". Not meaning that in a negative sense at all though I admit it is true that we aren't like the majority of girls out there. We aren't exactly "ku niang" girls and, to some level, I think we like feeling and being independent in such a way that makes guys feel uneasy. Well, in my opinion at least. And I think that's why we don't have many guys sticking around in the lab continuing their projects etc. Nothing long-term at least. Hur hur... I realise BWV is also bring run by girls... and very few guys.

MORE WAITING!! ARGGHH!!!!!!

2005-11-08T17:20:00.000+08:00

ARGGHHHHHHH WHYYYYYY THEY'RE MAKING ME WAIT LONGER!!!!! THE REPLY BETTER BE POSSITIVE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARGGHHHHHHHHH HOW MUCH LONGER!!!!!?!?!?! I CANNOT TAKE THIS!!!! Come on.. just HIT ME... Get it over and done with!!!
At least they emailed apologising for the delay.... sigh.... my heart is beating so fast... What if it's a negative reply... Then where do I go from here?? ARGH!!!!!

My no. 1 song

2005-11-07T23:39:00.000+08:00

Hope dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption
Winding in and winding out
The shine of it has caught my eye

And roped me in
So, mesmerizing and so hypnotizing,
I am captivated, I am....

At least 10 days of waiting...

2005-10-31T22:12:00.000+08:00

TORTURE. PURE TORTURE. I think waiting is SUCH torture...I think I might be a enjoying it a bit though...gives a sense of excitement. Something to look forward to, be it good or bad. I think half our lives are spent WAITING. Either waiting for something to happen, waiting for yourself to feel ready, waiting for someone else to be ready, waiting for a university to process your application...TORTURE!...waiting waiting waiting...Next thing we know, we're 3 feet down into our graves. Sad isn't it. Just like the whale in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Am being a bit angst-y nowadays, I wonder why. I should be happy because I have all I NEED. But being humans I guess it's inborn to WANT more and more...never satisfied. Maybe that's what makes us different from other species of animals. And why we've been so successful in colonising this planet.

General sense of loss and being lost

2005-10-31T17:17:00.000+08:00

I miss my mac. Sniff.

The crash of the mac.

2005-10-24T11:57:00.000+08:00

MY MAC CRASHED ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I am Macless. Mail-less. Some data-less. ARGHHH... HOOOWW WHHHYYYY ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I feel so lost now.

Where do I go from here?

2005-10-20T21:33:00.000+08:00

Anyone got the answer?

3 strikes and you're OUT!

2005-10-12T23:22:00.000+08:00

'Nuff said. Volunteers and helpers are probably not OBLIDGED to come down or stay for the whole duration. And it's hard to tell them off when needed, but SERIOUSLY. STOOD ME UP THREE TIMES. Second and third time is TWO DAYS in a ROW. And THIS, after I jokingly say "one more time and I will blacklist the person". Sigh. Why do I feel so betrayed. I shouldn't let this get to me, but I am. It's so not me. Normally I'd just let it slide, heck it, but it's just so... ARGGHH!!!

Another quiz thing...

2005-10-08T21:08:00.000+08:00

Now you know what I do when I get bored... Writing the RF SOP drained me... urgh. Have yet to finish the essay for my post-grad application... and updating the BWV website! ARGH!!!

WATER

Your element is water. On the
surface you are calm and relaxed like a still
lake or small pond. However, appearances can be
deceiving, because underneath you are powerful
and emotional. You are creative and
instrospective though not completely solitary.
You like the company of others as much as you
like the peace of solitude. You are well-liked
and easy to get along with unless your temper
is unleashed. Kind and nurturing you love
helping others and cannot stand seeing pain.
You would be best matched with Earth or Light.

The Element Personality Quiz (7 Results / Photos)
brought to you by Quizilla

Am so tired!

2005-09-27T22:16:00.000+08:00

I am going to ramble on... am so tired... in the lab... want to go home and sleep... but the inertia is so great... Zee just finished writing the reference letter I was suppose to write for Tse-Lynn... but obviously my engrand leaves something to be desired... I don't know what's with me and expressing myself in words... it just doesn't go... have trouble putting words together... wish I could DRAW a referral letter haha... that'd be fun... my hands are so itchy... no help from Daniel who tried to sting me with hydroids... on purpose... he is very impressive diver though... efficient and reliable... reminds me of what I added into Tse-Lynn's referrence letter... haha... I not on purpose flung some hydroids over to Tse-Lynn... but it was not on purpose!... saw baby seahorse today... so cute... on the nubbins... what's with the nubbins anyway... is this the deal?... what is with the double workload?... Am not complaining about the double field work... I like field work... in general... but being out in the field doing mundane things like cleaning nubbins... is taking time away from my tiles... and that sucks... what with the taking photos and all... think so easy to stick together composite digital photos is it?... with such vis... suspended particles and all... can't focus... I am so miffed right now... maybe it's because I am so tired and sleepy... don't know why I am so tired also... why why why?... Sunday's Reef Friend's dive is lacking 7 people... how?... I say it'll be alright... but how?... I have already agreed to go Bintan with Eric... So that can't be helped... I can't wait to go to Bintan... should be fun!... small island... in the middle of nowhere... hope there is time to go help Zee collect some gobies and maybe crabs... but concentrate on gobies said she... tired tired tired... rambling rambling rambling... student coming down tomorrow... thursday will be going to UWS... I don't think I have enough working plankton nets... how?... I need to go find me more... listening to new songs Abby passed me... my eyes barely keeping open... nice songs... inertia... OK ready to go off. Rambling will probably end here. Probably. No? No? Not yet I guess...

High on catnip.

2005-09-25T17:38:00.000+08:00

My dear favourite-est cat... has sniffed out the stash of catnip among the mess thrown out of the cupboard during cleaning.

And this was what he did!

AHAH! Caught red...err... pawed! Catnip all over the floor!

The torn bag!

Stuffing his face into the catnip bag! (I din force it... I just put the bag in FRONT of it!!)

Sniff sniff...Getting high!

So doped out! (again, I just put it in FRONT of him! To get a shot of how high he got sniffing it!)

High!

Rolling everywhere on the floor!

Rub rub rub twist twist twist...roll roll roll...

Strange thing is... I think this is the first few times it's been exposed to catnip!!! I don't usually condone the use of catnip on my cats! But it was there to placate one of my earlier stubborn chaotic cats...Wonder whether there's an expiry date for such stuff...

Anyway, Tom is my MOST FAVOURITE CAT! He roams freely all around the whole estate, getting food etc from other people, but he responds and manja-s most with me! He loves getting rubbed on his belly...and sleeps with me on the crook of my arm while I snuggle him like a teddy bear! =) He'd be purring... so CUUTTEEE!!!!!

Though I think all this only manja business is 'cos I took care of him day after day, night after night, when he was having very heavy flu after my idiot neighbour trapped him and sent him off to SPCA. His cage was not placed in a very sheltered area and when it rained heavily, he got wet and cold...IRRITATING BASTARDS! Poor thing couldn't eat and drink and had his nose all stuffed up, losing so much weight and lost his shiny soft fur...ARGH!!!

My bro and mom thinks he's the bastard cat in the family and dirty, what with all the cuts and wounds he gets ever so often and all. But he's the BEST! I think without Tom, other cats would encroach upon our territory and terrorise the other scaredy homely cats...

Balding?

But for some odd reason my cats seem to be balding... WHY WHHYYY??? Just like Jeff's cats! Tom's head area seem to be balding and Pesek's butt and tail area is losing fur... Hmm.......... why why why? Reuben thinks it's because of catnip...But this is the first time it's been exposed to catnip! He also thinks it's because of the dry cat food... His mom says I can try using gentian violet to treat the balding patches. That's what she does with her cats anyway... Now where can I get some?

Which greek god/goddess are you?

2005-09-24T13:30:00.000+08:00

You're Artemis. It's all about power! You like
hunting and you're also beautiful. If someone
displeases you, you kill them, it's that simple

Take the quiz HERE

My and my playmate

2005-09-04T22:45:00.000+08:00

Met my friend diving today...AGES since I last saw him. Probably half a year or something. It was fun to meet up and play again! Haha... it's really nice to have a guy friend you can beat up. No obligations, no commitments, no worries... just fun. Nothing to be ashamed of or to be shy about. Nothing to beat around the bush with, nothing to make the butterflies in my stomach flutter. Nothing to make me stutter, nothing to make it hard for me to express myself. It's a just so friendship. It's nice. Can talk about anything, everything... whenever I feel like it. Easy. Only problem is, as a friend he has some issues in the reliability department. But so do I. Heh.

Cheers to friends!

Physiotherapy

2005-08-30T17:10:00.000+08:00

I've never been to physio therapy before. Not after I tore the ligament of my left ankle (which seems ages ago when it HEALED within a week and I was back up and running and playing softball).

The pregnant lady (no, no cute guys...) physiotherapist helped me through a number of stations. Each station getting increasingly more difficult and painful than the other.

The first was easy. "Warm up" - she calls it. She made me cycle on a reclined cycle for 10 minutes. Which was easy enough and fun to some extent. Then that was done. Moving on. She made me do resistance training on this funny machine. I had to sit down and push on this metal thing with my ankles until its at my tippy toes, controlling the recoil. This was not too bad...but it's a damn wake up call on how WEAK my ankle has become! 'Cos I tried it with my other ankle and VOILA! it was so darn easy and fast. My right leg, on the other hand, was actually trembling...But it felt good after...like I did some REAL WORKOUT man!

Once that was done, it was outside to the balcony. First it was 3 levels of ankle rotation exercises on this funny board. And then it was 3 levels, WITH WEIGHTS. I realise how inflexible my ankle has become...*sniff*

Then it was the TRAMPOLNE. What could a trampoline do to help my ankle get better?! Well, apparently it's good grounds to practice balancing on your ankle. I wobbled, trembled, lost balance and was in pain at some points in time. It was horrible. I hated this the most.

Well, I thought it'd be over by then... but NOooooOOOoooo!! Then there were the half squats and the tip toes. Stand on one leg, do half squat, hold of ten seconds and repeat for 20 reps. I can tell you this took quite some time...
After that, was the raise-your-ankles-stand-on-your-tippy-toes-hold-for-ten-seconds-for-20-reps. Which was worse than the first exercise... ARGHHH!!!

But it REALLY felt good. Like my ankle feels so worked out!!

It wasn't over yet. My physio tells me my ankle is still swollen. Then I told her...I went diving over the weekend. SURPRISINGLY, she didn't scold me! She said DIVING is OK. As long as you don't fin too hard (OOPS, against current, OOPS) and take care getting off and getting onto the boat with the heavy tank/load.

So she makes me go to this heat therapy thing down the hall. It felt like my rewards for all the pain...I sat back and had this machine radiating heat that could penetrate deep into my tissues carefully arranged over my ankle. Sat back and relaxed for 15 minutes.

All in all, a good first time experience to the physio's. 'Cept for the damn long waiting times in between...
Well, next week is another Tuesday of good pain!

MY FAT CAT

2005-07-22T15:36:00.001+08:00

MY FAT CAT! He is sooooo fat....he can't climb OVER the gate...or SQUEEZE through between the grills...we had to SPECIALLY make a hole in the garden wall for him to enter and exit...Despite his size, he's such a SCAREDY CAT...runs away at the smallest things...And has the habit on peeing on ANYTHING that's left on the floor. Urgh. But he's still so CUTE...!!!!

MOMOK!

REVIVAL of the SALTED Fried Tempeh

2005-06-12T14:10:00.000+08:00

Y.E.S. I have decided to revive this blog of mine... It's been too hard to keep up the The Blue Tempeh and upkeep the BWV website AND keep up a personal-ish blog at the same time...

Anyway, I got me a new TOY! Hahaha! And am feeling pretty excited about it.

WOOOooH....

WHAT'S HAPPENED IN THE PAST MONTH.

2004-10-19T10:02:00.000+08:00

Whoa. It's been AGES since I wrote in something in this Blog, no? Nothing much's happened? Except the usual eat, sleep, shit routine. Interspersed by diving and work. Well, there were things I wanted to Blog but didn't get to.

Like the Mooncake Festival (you can see this at Abby's Blog and Angeline's Blog).

Then there was the yucky Assam sweet from Thailand that Sukree gave the lab. Which I found VERY nice. But the rest found it tasted like puke. Very odd.

Then there's the Surin2 Aur training camp last last weekend. I found most of the people rather...urm...errr...bleah.

Then last weekend there was the East Timor training camp. Great bunch of people! All seasoned divers with the proper motivation. And the FOUR BUMPHEAD PARROTFISHES feeding in 2m of water within arms' reach and seen while SNORKLING which practically helped disrupt the team's MERAC session. Hehehe.

Well...this is it for the update. So unexciting I know! No time to put up proper photos and documentation. Hey, it's fasting month! I need all my energy to sustain my basic processes. Like, at this point in time...right now...currently...I need to go and defecate. So catch ya'll later! Soon. Not too far from now.

DIVING RAFFLES LIGHTHOUSE.

2004-10-05T20:24:00.000+08:00

Corals. Corals. Corals. Corals. Corals. Corals. Corals. Corals. Corals. C.o.r.a.l.s. C.O.R.A.L.S.!!!!!! Sigh. Diving Raffles Lighthouse (RL) can never go wrong. Scenic. Relaxing. One of the places with constantly good vis. Although when I first started my project here I got lost like nobody's business trying to find my experimental quadrats. Now, it's a breeze. I love this place. Site with one of highest coral cover in Singapore. LIVE coral cover. Read: Not dead. Read: Colourful. Read: Very pretty....SINGAPORE'S REEFS ARE ALIVE! (copy the Chek Jawa phrase)

Foliose corals of many colours.

Raffles Lighthouse, or also known as Pulau Satumu (don't ask me why, History was never my strong point) is one of the best places to dive in Singapore waters. Too bad if you come within 300m of the island without a permit from MPA, the coast guard will come at you faster than you say, "Whhooaa, that's a BIG gun!"

It used to be dive-able by anyone. But due to security reasons, and its proximity to the live firing area islands (i.e. pulau sudong, pawai etc etc)...you can piece it together, no? No need for long explanations. Though, I can tell you some horror stories about when there were miscommunications and we almost dived when jet planes were about to have target practice at the neigbouring islands...Shudder.

Vis was good again... at least 2m! I think the low tide condition we dived in sort of mucked up the sediments and made it not as clear. But at 10m, it was still VERY clear.

Sea of Blue.

What was I doing diving at a restricted area you ask? I am actually doing a small project involving special artificial reefs or reefs enhancement units (REUs), which is part of a bigger project handled by Elsie. I look a lot at coral recruits...i.e. BABY CORALS. The product of coral sex orgies! (see past log)

Here's some of my babiieesss.....aren't they cuutteee....awww.....look at them....

A Pocillopora baby on the REU.

Darling Acropora baby on the REU.

I also look at baby corals on the natural rubble plots on the reef itself as well...

Baby Goniopora coral. Which will grow into...

A field of daisy-like things. So pretty!

The fish life here is great too! Loads of butterfly fishes! Certain types of butterflyfishes feed on coral polyps and can be used to see whether the area has healthy coral life or not! And RL definitely has lots of these!

Copper banded butterflyfish. Pretty pretty...

Eight-banded butterflyfish. Count the bands!

Oh, and the DAMSELFISH at RL is...ARGGHHH. FRUSTRATING! They're so protective of their home range (and algae patches that they farm). So fierce. So daring. So...PAINFUL! They bite all parts of your body. Yank your hair. Again. And again. And again And again again again.

The honey headed damselfish...respect!

Oh...not only the damselfish at RL is fierce. The TOMATO clownfish near my quadrat is also not to be messed with. If I weren't wearing a full suit, I would be crying of pain by now.

Tomato anemonefish. Male & female.

But there are nice fishies cute and non...urm...pain inflicting. Like these!

3 little false clownfish...Cute aren't they?!

Such a cute li'l blue fish!

Besides fishies, there are also OTHER things. Like..........

GIANT CLAMS!!!!

The story behind these clams are that they were placed here after being confiscated from an illegal shipment. They are actually from Indonesian waters. That are surviving well and have grown to quite a commendable size. Big, they are...

Oh and this HUGGEEE flatworm that Tse-Lynn found...

That's the flatworm. And that's Tse-Lynn's finger (fatly gloved)

And cushion stars too!!

The vis was sooooo good that at 10+ metres, it was still so bright and clear and non-eerie. See my dive comp. if you don't believe me:

It says 9.1m I think...or 9.7m. But nonetheless, it was still so clear!

There were big giant boulders of Diploastrea corals...A characteristic of Raffles Lighthouse Boulders! Massive. Imagine how long it too to grow to this size! It'll probably take my age times 10, or more even.

Awww...my darling coral.

But lots of hydroids too!

And Tse-Lynn saw this REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY pretty tubeworm! (A serpulid for the more worm-inclined out there) SOOOO PRETTYYYY... PRETTY PRETTY WOOORRMMM........Awww......PRETTY WORM...

PRETTYYY WOORRMMMM!!! SOOO PRETTYY!!! ARGGHHH!!!

......But DANGER LOOMS....DA DUM.

Acropora branching coral.

RED CORAL!! So pretty!!!

See these pretty corals. And then THIS:

NETS ALERT!

Sigh. Nets, sedimentation, poaching, dredging, illegal collection. These are some of the things that our reefs are being threatened by. It's really a wonder how hardy our marine environment is, and how much more it will be able to take...

THE DAY WITH FOUR DIVES...

2004-09-30T23:31:00.000+08:00

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:

Nice seafans!

Bubble coral! (Euphyllia divisa)

Filefish!

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!

My favourite favourite favourite most dive site...

False Clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris).

Tomato anemonefish

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!

Anemone up close!

Kusu is also home to....

Polyclad flatworm.

Corals and butterflyfish.

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....

BURAN REEF, day 3 & SAINT JOHN'S REEF

2004-09-29T23:17:00.000+08:00

........................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:

Polyclad flatworm

Glossodoris atromarginata

Jerona funebris

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.....

The currents were so strong that we did not even manage to finish the shallow transects. Aborted dive halfway to find out that the next window to dive is at 5.45pm! Had to. Go dive. To retrieve. Back. The. Damn. Tapes. Shack-ness. I need massage...

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!

Big big Diploastrea coral.

Bubble bubble bubble!!! Coral! BUBBLE CORAL! (Pleurogyra)

Witch's nose coral (Mycedium).

Ooohhh....Weapons UP!

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.......

The poor thing was barely alive...

BURAN REEF, day 2.

2004-09-28T18:03:00.000+08:00

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.

Big Platygyra coral.

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.....

Phyllidae

Acropora shrimp

Polyclad flatworm.

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!!!!

Oh look, there's TWO of them...so cuutteeeeee...

Closer shot of the goby.

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

A cushionstar we did not sit on.

Rather large graze marks from suspectedly rather large parrotfish...

Colourful seafan at the reef slope!

.....And BIG ones too!!

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

Pretty ain't it...

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

Scaaarrryyyy....My face was not spared...

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

My stinging sacrifice was well WORTH IT!

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..........

DIVING MIDWAY & BURAN REEFS.

2004-09-27T21:15:00.000+08:00

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.

Nice big Porites sp. coral.

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!!!!

An anemone wall. No scale here. But it's big.

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.

Anyone know the species name for this?

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!

What greated me when I reached the reef crest.

Sea fans!.

Loads of lizardfish and gobies too.

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

Sharq the man!

THE WONDERFULLY SATISFYING DAY.

2004-09-25T23:59:00.000+08:00

I love my Powerbook (Precious is what I call him/her/it). I am in a cab, on the way home, making full use of my time by writing this. Well, as useful as writing this gets, that is. Which I think is pretty useful. Or at least satisfyingly F.U.N. Bet the taxi uncle thinks I am so hardworking and doing hard work furiously typing away at my laptop. Little does he know….Am turning into my street now. I'll be right back, after the break. Stay tuned. No, do NOT click on away from me. Stay. Good girl/boy/it.

And...welcome back to THE Salted Fried Tempeh. We will continue our segment on...My Wonderfully Satisfying Day.

Imagine the bright sunny sun rising in the horizon. Warmth creeping to replace the cold pre-dawn air...And then hacking coughing breaking the chirpy chirping of the morning birdy birds. I felt like it was going to be a loooonngggg and paaaiinnnffull day. Not to mention the...urm...the stomach problems in the morning. It did not seem good. No, not good at all.

Work was OK. Lunch came and went. Then the fun started. I shall not double blog for good reasons as you can read the events in detail HERE. Yes, H.E.R.E. (click it). Go on, don't be shy.

And then we all went for some free porn at SIF. James' talk on Coral Sex! (see past log). I shall let the pictures to the talking 'cos I don't think I can do justice to the things we did...

First, we set up our booth. It was up in MINUTES!

Second, we put up our posters. So EFFICIENTLY!

MY POSTER MY POSTER MY POSTER!!! Ain't it nicee.....

Then, we mended the booth while people arrived for the talk. So DILIGENT!
(This is Wei Song by the way, self-admited slave-on-loan from the RMBR Toddycats)

James gave his excellent talk on CORAL SEX next....

...and got Ria excited with the coral porn!...And made ABBY eat cuttlefish (see odd girl in background).

And while our audience took NOTES diligently, at the back, we...............

..........did THIS.

.........and THIS: HI GUYS, meet GILIAN, our Public Exhibitions Officer! Isn't she sweet? Aw.

And...Abygayle ****-Ng Pek Kaye (a.k.a Abby)

Oh, here's Gilian again...Aw. So shy.

And Gilian again...up close...and...urm...closer...

....................

OK. Enough with the Gilian. Besides mundane photo-taking, Abby and I also came up with a potential award-winning storyboard material for a new movie! It's called: SHARK v.s. KILLER WHALE. Or...KILLER WHALE v.s. SHARK! And it goes like this:

"Lalalala, I'm swimming in the sea...I'm a cuttlefish so delicious and yummy..."

As the little cute cuttlefish swim in the big blue ocean, 2 large predators happen to spot him/her/it.

And it looks like BOTH predators, a great white shark, and a killer whale, have decided to...err...prey on the poor little cuttlefish...

Shark: !!!

Killer whale: !!! !!! !!!

Shark: He's/she's/it's MINE!
Killer whale: NO!!! MINE!

MINE!!! NO MINE!!! MINE!!! NO!! Let go!!! OW, you got one of my tentacles!! Sharks have no tentacles?!!? NOO!! You got MY tentacle, THE CUTTLEFISH!!! LET GO!! YOU'RE MINE!! NO! You're MINE!! *&@#$%^

Shark & Killer whale together: NO!! MIINNEE!!! (slow-mo here)
The shark and the killer whale BOTH lunged at the squid at the same time and....

....as they lunged forth, they collided into one another and due to the play of forces, pressure and other unknown factors, the cuttlefish got spit out of their mouths and the shark and the killer whale, sunk their teeth into one another instead...

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. 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!!

The talk soon ended after great presentation 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.

Fantastic talk James! Oooh.. that's US!!

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...

Dionne, our Public Talks Officer in action.

After packing up and storing everything away at....

.....5.08 PM.....

.....we proceeded to JC Kitchen at the basement level of Park Mall where....

.....Dionne ordered this giant claypot porridge for herself...

.....Hmmm...After all that hard work coordinating the talk, I think she deserves it. The rest of us had rather nice pasta with MUSHROOMS. Delicious. And just sat there plotting evil plans on passing stonefish to people we don't like during our reef walk sessions...(which apparently my parents have SIGNED UP FOR of all other things they could be doing).

JC Kitchen has really good food for great value and so much variety and great tables for meetings and friendly staff........and the Cute Waiter Guy. According to Abby, Angeline, Dionne, Tse-Lynn and Haniman...i.e. EVERYONE ELSE...my Cute Waiter Guy is not Cute at all. Angeline gave him an OK. BUT HE IS QUITE CUTE WHAT! He bothered to actually check whether the Primavera pasta had MUSHROOMS or not for me and Tse-Lynn the first time we went there. After initially telling us that there were no mushrooms in it, he actually admited his mistake and returned to tell us otherwise! Actually I don't know why he's so cute but he just is. There's something about my Cute Waiter Guy that's Cute...I just don't know what. He's also shorter than 1.78m...which is my minumum height requirement too! What is IT about him...what what what??? Anyone??? For once I am looking forward to more meetings at SIF................Yes yes, I'm sick sick sick.

Night came and after much mooching around, we finally proceeded to...CLICK HERE for the final section of My Wonderfully Satisfying Day.

And...that was My Wonderfully Satisfying Day. Wonderful, no? Well, after being home-ridden for almost the whole week, this is VERY satisfying indeed. That's All Folks!....For now....

....AND THEY'RE BACK!

2004-09-24T01:27:00.000+08:00

Zeehan and Abby and everyone is BACK! The lab suddenly was so noisy this evening! Why do I suddenly miss the quiet times...NOT! Think being home-ridden makes you appreciate all these things even more. Yeap. Goody good.

Had a Blue Water Volunteers meeting too at the place with the rather not too bad looking waiter (too bad he's quite short though and can't tell whether the food on his menu has mushrooms or not, or rather could not tell whether mushrooms were included in the vegetables mentioned in the dish...something like that).

Anyway, felt rather useless in the meeting. Felt so........UN-grownup. If there's such a word. Like...whoooaawww...these people talk deep. Things that went through my head were: "Hmm...where's all the salted fish in my Fried Rice with Salted Fish gone to? Thought there were more the last time I ate this here..." and "What smart things can I possibly say now?"...

GAH. This is possibly because I've heard all the meeting agenda before the meeting itself and have given my opinions already. HAHA! Yeah right. I didn't even convince myself!

OK, time to sleep before Angeline nags at me to go to bed again! She's so sweet...

BACK TO WORK!

2004-09-23T13:39:00.000+08:00

After being home-ridden for so long, this is surely a refreshing change. But...no Abby (the APPLECOW), no Zeehan, no Pricilla, no Tse-Lynn, no Wan-Jean, no Prof, no Ruth, not even Elsie! NOONE!!! Elsie and Tse-Lynn popped up a few minutes later, but the rest are all...away...in...TIOMAN...for the field techniques course trip. The only news I had from them was that they decided to christen Reuben as Gopal or Samy and that they saw a Barramundi cod and that Wan-Jean said they should max out on their dives.

What a sad day to be back at work. And today's dive was cancelled too...I was quite looking forward to that. Oh wells.

CORAL SEX TALK!

2004-09-22T13:36:00.000+08:00

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.

WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO YOUR MAMA:

2004-09-22T04:25:00.000+08:00

If you don't, and still dive while having the flu and cough, you'll end up with infected wind-pipe and a relapse that can get you 2 more days of m.c. eating unexciting food and getting bouts of coughing fits that might end up with you throwing your lunch all over the kitchen sink. Especially if she's the one who passed you the virus in the first place.

WIRELESS!!!

2004-09-21T13:54:00.001+08:00

This is BAD. VERY bad. Now, I am connected everywhere at home. I can be on my bed, eating chips and sending emails at the same time. I can be on the sofa watching TV and uploading photos at the same time. I can also be in the toilet and updating my Blog at the same time.............................................I'm only kidding about the last one. Really. Really really.

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO AT TEKUKOR:

2004-09-21T13:49:00.000+08:00

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.........

ALMOST FAMOUS:

2004-09-19T23:38:00.000+08:00

..............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

THE ICCS DAY:

2004-09-19T14:59:00.000+08:00

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.

The break down of the trash collected. Look at those numbers man!

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?

The Tempeh Speaks:

2004-09-17T16:29:00.000+08:00

Hello there. Aren't you a curiuos one. Why have you come? Oh really? Hmm... that's interesting. Anyway, I am Fried Tempeh. THE Fried Tempeh. Nice to meet you too. And this is my adventures as the SALTED Fried Tempeh.