Well, slow as I am, here is the coral cover for Kusu from the survey on 31 May 08.

The shallow transect

The deep transect

For now, I will not be posting up the mobile invertebrates and fish surveys, because the Reef Check method only looks at those species that are economically-important, which makes our reefs look quite miserable.

Cheers, Jeff

The surveys are coming fast and furious this year, due to our late start. This is the third site for the year - only 6 more to go!

We’ve been very lucky so far - visibility was again, an amazing 4-5m, and there was little current at the site. With a team of 6 today, we managed to get the lines laid out and work started in short order. There was even time for a bit of exploring, and training of the two Reef Check trained volunteers from SMU in a bit of the LIT codes.

Saw some pretty amazing stuff - large seafans (at relatively shallow depths, I might add), and a few red featherstars (which seem to be all over the place the last couple of months).

Bright red-orange seafan along the transect.

The red featherstars that seem to be all over the place. Nice!

The good visibility also allowed the fish transect to be conducted smoothly … at the shallow transect, I was followed by a large school of rabbitfish (Siganus canalicaulatus), and we also encountered a very large puffer that trying its best to look like a rock.

School of rabbitfish .. this one’s for you Marco!!

Jun, harassing the puffer … note the ruler to the side, which Jun tried to use to gauge the puffer’s size in her photo

All in all, a very good day out.

Cheers, Jeff

Surveyed the reef on the western side of Hantu today. As with the previous Kusu survey, only 5 of us were on board for this trip, which meant a bit more work for me. While I am sorting through the data, Hui Bing has already posted some stuff on her blog.

The visibility was almost unbelievable at 5-6m, which made work really easy. Unfortunately I didn’t bring along my camera for this trip, so of course, all the nice stuff popped out to say “Hi!” .. two huge trevallies, two Ceratosomas, a few Red-breasted Maori wrasses (Cheilinus fasciatus), and two Six-barred Angelfish (Pomacanthus sexstriatus). Hopefully the others managed to get some nice shots of these things and will post them up soon.

In the meantime, I am mulling over how real life seems to have taken its toll among our surveyors, and most of our Scientific Officers. Many are overseas, or otherwise occupied. With the up coming departure of Marco and Ming Sheng, our situation will get more dire .. so this is sort of an appeal for volunteers to step up to the plate to be trained as surveyors, and eventually as Scientific Officers.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Cheers, Jeff
Reef Friends Team

Kusu was chosen to kick off this year’s round of reef surveys. Kusu has always been an under-rated site, ever since we started in 2003 - big waves, from passing mega-ships far out at sea, and exacerbated by winds, tested the stomach of surveyors on many occasions.

This time round, however, the waters were calm, and the surge, slight. Visibility was pretty good, at about 4m, which made the survey go really smoothly, even though we were short one pair of hands. We even had time (or at least I did) to check out the lower reef, where I encountered the largest seafans I have ever seen in Singapore.

(space here reserved for seafan picture)

Data processing is still on-going and I’ll post more on the results and other pictures when I get hold of them. In the meantime, you can check out Chay Hoon’s account of the trip.

Cheers, Jeff
Scientific Officer
Reef Friends Team

The second island to be surveyed in our Reef Friends programme for 2007, Kusu has always been a challenging site to survey, mainly due to the huge waves generated by the mega-ships that ply our waters. The waves generate momentum and by the time they hit Kusu, can be a meter or so in height.

Map of Kusu Island, showing the location of the survey site.

This has not daunted the reefal organisms though, as Juanhui’s blog shows.

The coral life in the shallows was still pretty amazing, with many sizable colonies more than a meter wide recorded on our transects. Deep down, gorgonians and sea whips thrive, although at a seemingly shallow depth (about 7m) then previously encountered.

The gorgonian garden (photo by Minsheng)

Huibing and Marcel complained (happily, I might add) about the profusion of featherstars (deep invertebrate) and anemonefishes (shallow fish) on their transects. Huibing indicated in an email that she was seeing (feather)stars in her sleep!! There were sometimes so many featherstars on the whips and seafans that they were bent double from the weight!

Marcel, on the other hand, found out why Kusu’s reefs are also known as “Anemone City” to some of us. He had fun counting all the anemonefish that made these anemones their home.

The clincher, however, was the sighting of a lobster at the start of transect 5 (also see Juanhui’s blog). I think almost everyone (except me - I was too busy recording) took the time to go look at the little fella.

The little fella (photo by Minsheng)

Up top, the waves were not as active today as other days - this combined with relatively clear waters and a clear sky, made for a very pleasant trip out - at least, all of us were still looking fresh and smiling at the end of the trip

The data still needs to be compiled as it comes streaming in, so I will post those separately when they are done.

Cheers, Jeff