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