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Cyrene Reef (Singapore): 27 May 2009It's another early departure for a tiny band of Seagrassers. We depart from the very swank Marina at Keppel Bay and were nearly turned away by the super tight security folks. Fortunately, we managed to convince them that we were genuine customers and soon we were off in a brand new boat arrangement with Thye and Jumari. Jumari takes us swiftly to the shore. Another change as you can see, we all have to wear spiffy life vests. I had to let mine out a lot along the sides to be able to get into it. Sigh. The team is very lean today, so most of us did a transect alone. Here is Andy hard at work on his. Thanks to Andy for helping us straighten up our lines, and taking the GPS points for Site 2! There are MANY species of seagrasses on Cyrene so it's quite tricky to do the monitoring. The tide window is very short today! We had only about 20 minutes after finishing the monitoring to get back to the departure point. A quick rescue of gear (that started floating away), we put on the vests and make the long scary trek to the edge of the reef to get on the dinghy. For more pictures and interesting facts visit Team Seagrass Click Here
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Bowen (Qld, Australia): 24 May 2009We had lovely weather and good tides today enabling 19 of us to hit the meadows. The partnership built between the community and the Scouts remains strong with both groups well represented. Of passing interest, the beach has been closed off since before Christmas due to works being undertaken on the foreshore. Small but dense (for Bowen) patches of seagrass were evident very close inshore - within 15m of the high tide line perhaps as a result of reduced casual traffic in the vicinity. We also passed through solid patches of Ho as we walked out to our monitoring area, but not much of it is growing in our plot. As they say... the grass is always greener somewhere else! Text: Lesley Bullemor
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Shelley Beach (Qld, Australia): 22 May 2009It was a beautiful clear sunny day on Friday 22nd May when Mike, Cameron and Naomi embarked on monitoring the SB2 site. We noticed that compared to the February monitoring, the algae in the area had increased and so too had the percent cover of seagrass. There were many egg sacs recorded and seeds were found in every core. Thank you to Mike and Cameron for an enjoyable afternoon! Text: Naomi Smith, Seagrass-Watch HQ
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Labrador (Singapore): 13 May 2009Team Seagrass visited Labrador today with Len McKenzie (Seagrass-Watch Program Leader). Also attending was Chen Puay aka Mr Lim who has been valiantly leading his young ladies from RGS in monitoring and learning about this special mainland seagrass meadow. And Ben joined later. Labrador has Singapore's only large meadows of Sickle seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii) on the mainland. In the photo below (left), Len, Cheng Puay and Siti are standing in the middle of the meadow of this seagrass. There is also a smaller patch further along the shore. For more pictures and interesting facts visit Team Seagrass Click Here
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Bali Workshop (Level 1): 09 May 2009Seagrass-Watch HQ visited Bali in early May to conduct Level 1 training. It has been four years since Seagrass-Watch last visited Bali and conducted training. Since then relatively little has happened apart from some annual monitoring in Karimunjawa. Hopefully interest will increase after the workshop, as most participants were new to the program. Workshop participants were from a diverse range of academic, government and non-government organisations, including: University of Udayana, Bogor Agricultural University (CCMRS/PKSPL – IPB), Mataram University, Institute for Marine Research and Observation (IMRO), Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, The Indonesian Coral Reef Foundation (TERANGI), Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Classroom and laboratory sessions were conducted at the Coral Triangle Center (The Nature Conservancy) and the field session was at Sanur Beach (SN1). Enhalus acoroides was flowering on the low spring tides and participants observed lots of female flowers, fruits and male flowers (dispersing across the water surface). There were also lots of Thalassia hemprichii fruits observed floating over the monitoring site. Seagrass abundance at SNI appears similar to when it was last monitored in May 2005. The site is located on a section of the Sanur reef flat/lagoon where fishing and gleaning is discouraged. Either side of the area was popular with many locals taking advantage of the low tides to fish or collect whatever animals they could find amongst the seagrass. The workshop was supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society (Indonesia, Marine), local coordination by Stuart Campbell (WCS Marine Program Coordinator), The Nature Conservancy (Coral Triangle Center), and Seagrass-Watch HQ. Seagrass-Watch HQ would like to thank all those who attended the workshop and hope you enjoyed it.
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Mer Island (Torres Strait): 05 - 07 May 2009Despite the heavy rain and storms circulating the island we managed to get out onto the seagrass meadow in front of Mud (pronounced Murd) Village and establish a site. The dominant seagrass within the site was Cymodocea rotundata and Thalassia hemprichii. Within the meadow though we also found Halodule uninervis, Enhalus and Halophila ovalis. The seagrass plants all showed evidence of heavy grazing by turtles and fish. This meadow was selected by Moses Wailu the Mer Island Dugong and Turtle Project Officer as it is known to be a foraging area for turtles. It is also a good site for collecting Artie -octopus!!! Moses is so keen he even had us scouting out other seagrass meadows for more sites around the other side of the island.
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Singapore Workshop (Level 1 & 2): 01 - 03 May 2009Seagrass-Watch HQ visited Singapore for the Labour Day long weekend to catch-up with TeamSeagrass and conduct both Level 1 (basic) and Level 2 (refresher) workshops. Pulau Semakau was the field event that kicked off the training workshops. The location has been monitored for over 2 years and the Level 2 particpants demonstrated their skills at monitoring all three sites on the morning of 1 May 2009. After a Safety Briefing from Siti and Ria, the particpants collected their equipment and ventured to their assigned monitoring sites. After a brief delay at PS1 (due to someone removing the permanent markers), all three sites were successfully completed within a couple of hours. It was a great day, complete with blue sky and sunshine. After a couple of hours rest, it was then Level 1 participants turn to learn the background knowledge required to properly and confidently conduct Seagrass-Watch monitoring. It was an intensive 5 hours, but everyone passed the written assessments with flying colours. They completed their training with the field component at Chek Jawa the following morning. Chek Jawa seagrass meadows appears to continually improve since they were decimated by freshwater floods in early 2007. The workshop finished off with the Level 2 classroom session on Sunday 3rd. Participants refreshed their taxonomy skills and learnt about the details of the Seagrass-Watch protocols. They also experienced how important it is to be properly trained and record data according to the standard protocols. Their skills of observation were also tested during the classroom exercises. The day was finished off by learning how to use a GPS and a "treasure" hunt throughout the beautiful Singapore Botanic Gardens to find the secret letters at eight locations which spelt out a secret seagrass word. Overall, particpants thoroughly enjoyed the training and the events were a huge success. A special thanks to Ria, Siti, Wei Ling and Shufen, for organising the workshops. Seagrass-Watch in Singapore is an initiative of TeamSeagrass in close partnership with the Biodiversity Centre of the National Parks Board. This workshop was supported by the National Parks Board Biodiversity Centre, Seagrass-Watch HQ, and TeamSeagrass Singapore. Seagrass-Watch HQ would like to thank all those who attended both Levels. We hope you enjoyed the workshops.
For more images visit Team Seagrass: Click Here
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