Torres Strait (Qld): 25-28 February 2007

Seagrass-Watch HQ visited Torres Strait in late February to conduct a training workshop with Torres Strait Land and Sea rangers and monitor new (Hammond island) and existing (Thursday and Horn Islands) sites.  For more information, download Seagrass-Watch News Issue 28 2007 (1.41mb)

To kick off the visit, Front Beach (Thursday Island) was monitored on the Sunday.  With help from Kinam and Stacey, the site was monitored in record time. 

	Thursday Island Workshop 26 February 2007

The training workshop was attended by the Kaiwalagal Indigenous Rangers from Horn Island, Hammond Island Indigenous Rangers, Hammond Island Nursery, and Miya Isherwood (Regional Natural Resource Management Facilitator, TSRA).  Participants were taught Seagrass-Watch monitoring methods, seagrass identification and trained in using GPS. 

	Back Beach (TI1) 26 February 2007

Back Beach was monitored for the first time in 2007 by TI Highschool students and teachers with assistance from Sue Gibbs, and Seagrass-Watch HQ.  New patches of Halophila spinulosa were discovered near the site.

	Horn Island (HI1) Wongai Beach 27 February 2007

Under squalls of torrential rain, the Kaiwalagal Indigenous Rangers on Horn Island, adopted HI1 site at Wongai Beach.  With help from Stacey, Kinam, Sinitta and Beccie, monitoring was completed in good time.

	Hammond Island (HD1) 28 February 2007

Hammond Island Rangers and the Hammond Island Nursery ladies, with help from Seagrass-Watch HQ, established a new site on the island (at Corner Bay) after a brief refresher class. 

Chek Jawa (Singapore): 24 February 2007

"A glorious sunny blue-sky morning on Chek Jawa for our very first Real Monitoring session! After an early morning start, we are divided into two teams. Everyone quickly got down to monitoring and it was soon done! " Text: Team Seagrass-Singapore.  TeamSeagrass Website Click here

Shelly Beach (Townsville, Qld): 19 February 2007

Magnetic Island (Townsville, Qld): 18 February 2007

	Magnetic Island(MI1) 1am in the morning
Maggie Is site during the day	Seagrass-Watch Team	Maggie Is site during the day
	Magnetic Island(MI2)

"Summer monitoring by our U3A Earth and Sea Class was carried out on the 18 Feb 2007.  The tide was late and very marginal while being the only real option for this month.  Nevertheless, everything went well." Text: Don Kinsey For more information, download Seagrass-Watch News Issue 28 2007 (1.41mb)

	Phylum Sipuncula

Phylum Sipunculids, or "Peanut Worms"(above center), usually remain buried, but are sometimes seen on soft ground. They do not have segments, are shaped like a cylinder and are very worm-like. They have a fat flask-like section that grows out into an eversible 'trunk-like" proboscis, with an mouth at the end. "Eversible" means it can turn its feeding proboscis inside out. This is like pushing a finger of a glove inside out. Sipunculids dig out burrows underneath boulders which lie in mud. They can also bore burrows into soft sand-rock. Sipunculids feed on organic matter that they extract from sand and mud.

Bushland Beach (Townsville, Qld): 18 February 2007

"There were 14 of us who ventured out, to Bushland Beach, however, the 800mm odd of rainfall that we have received over the past three weeks made the water quite muddy. There were also strong winds out to sea, which increased the tide by 10cm." Text: Lux Foot

Great Sandy Strait (Qld): 02-04 February 2007

"A most productive, enjoyable and interesting weekend.  Four sites were monitored: Boonoroo (BN1) done by Gordon, Hanne and Pat on the 02 Feb, Poona (PN1& PN2) done by Robyn and Hanne on the 3rd Feb and Tinnanbar (TN1) done by Gordon, Robyn and Pat, on the 4th Feb."

Text: Gordon Cottle

Hanne and Pat at BN1 (02 Feb)		Hanne on site, Poona (03 Feb)
	Pat and Robyn at TN1 (04 Feb)

Semakau (Singapore): 04 February 2007

"Pulau Semakau. Better known as our nation's landfill but home to a vast meadow of seagrass, stretching over 2km in length. To get to Pulau Semakau, we take a boat from West Coast Pier. Team Seagrass gets right to work on the boat labelling the aluminium stakes that are to mark our transect points at the three (yes, THREE) sites at Semakau." Text: Team Seagrass-Singapore.  TeamSeagrass Website Click here

Tuas (Singapore): 01 February 2007

"How exciting to finally meet all the volunteers from Schering Plough! Here we are, all ready to check out the Tuas shore...and what a fascinating shore Tuas is! With lots of Halophila ovalis and even a clump of long Enhalus acoroides. The Tuas shore is right next to reclaimed land but is alive with a wide variety of marine life. The tide was too high to go to the best parts (which are near the Merawang beacon). So we didn't get to check out the corals and sea fans there." Text: Team Seagrass-Singapore.  TeamSeagrass Website Click here