Urchin sings too?

This is a very interesting field of research.

I have been hearing a lot of clicking and fidgeting sounds in highly-urchin infested HK waters. Little do I know that they really do come from urchins!!!

I know that not only mammals, whales, fishes, crustaceans make sounds underwater but now urchins too???

Wonder what indications do they present?

I miss being a very curious marine biologist. It is boring working with rocks... Too safe.

Photo : The Age

The Oceans by DisneyNature

Strongly recommended.

or the link : http://youtu.be/uXLbQrK6cXw?hd=1

Whale Sharks

Avid marine enthusiast always dreamt of whale shark encounters. The most gentle of giants in the vast sea. But, not like this.....

Three whale sharks were spotted in Koh Lanta.

Two died within a week.

Cause : suspected trawling activities.

Read here.

Dog speaks loyalty

cnn.com.

Leao sat next to Cristina's grave, undisturbed, for days.

Thank you Megi

It's funny how humans [not quite sure about the animal kingdom] cannot be grateful and contented with what they have.

Megi was scheduled to hit Hong Kong last Thursday - expected to be the strongest storm to ever hit the region, bringing heavy downpour, mudslides, shutting down the mega city and definitely halting the economy. HK was prepared for it, and people were seen busy getting ready to embrace the wild storm and stocking up food at home.

The forecast went from Typhoon Signal No. 1 and rose up to 3 and stayed there until Wednesday. Miraculously, sun was shining brightly on Thursday, with the slightest breeze felt throughout the day. The weekend was tremendously fine, just ripe for the autumn season.

Super typhoon had decided to spare HK of it's massive killer strength and travel much north and brought other neighbouring regions battling with it.

However, not everyone felt grateful that they escaped what could possibly be the worst state of devastation that they could have ever imagined. Some started cursing the HK Observatory for the fluctuating forecast and condemned their reliability.

Little did they had in mind, how lucky we were at this stage.

270,000 flee, as typhoon hits China

And the fact that, we're a small little island, standing next door to them.

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if got sick, at least we didn't die; so let us all be thankful.

[Buddha]

Sun sets in Autumn

One of the beautiful sunsets in HK.

I love the view from my new office.

Perhaps.....

I should try to love my office more.

Food poisoning from school's canteen

Being stucked between heaven and earth, is not something to be proud of. I think the above and the below was indecisive, so they chose to dump me back on solid grounds.

A night's ordeal with i-lost-count-of-diarrhoea and vomitting had scared me enough of the food in the canteen. I swear I woke up in a coffin at one point. Can't thank Alex enough for rushing me to A&E early in the morning. Carrying me from one point to another. Holding me so tight fearing that I'd just break into pieces. Nanny-ing me. Worrying until her face turned white.

Well, that was me. And it is over.

School's canteen is supposed to be operated at their best. So many students and staffs are depending their 'eatinghood' on them. This is not my first encounter with the hygiene issue there. I was once 'served' with a barbed wire garnished in my vegetables.

Why must they take things for granted? What if the same thing had happened to their dearest ones?

Sigh... HK just executed their murder plans on me...

I beheaded a turtle!

It is really cool to share a special day for a special reason.


Brother-in-law had a cake specially designed to mimic a turtle [but turned out to be tortoise instead] to mark my day, inconjunction with World Turtle Day! My cake was sooo cool that it can't stop people from tables nearby to have their eyes fixated at the sight of my cake!

GLORY TO THE TURTLE!!!

23 May has never been so special for me. More reasons to celebrate. More knowledge to share. More messages to deliver.

Now, everyone has got a reason to remember my day ;)

Female in the male league

Very few can guess what I do when I go to work.

Specifically, nobody can believe what I did when I work.



My recent work took place at various mangrove locations in Borneo.

• Planning fieldwork.
• Exploring virgin mangroves.
• Assisting sampling.
• Purchasing equipments.
• Implementing ideas.
• Learned about land surveying.
• Snapping pictures.
• Middle person.
• Communicate with officers, staffs and labourers.
• Representing the university.
• Entertaining officials.
• Showing foreigner around.
• Filtering cigarette smokes.
• Paying for meals.

I have a team of man collaborating with the fieldwork. Most of the time, their expectation will underestimate me. Or they just have the tendency to neglect my presence. But I do not mind because I do have the mindset that both sexes are equal. Or at least, shown to be so. Those man eventually respected my contribution and how I take my stand.

That makes my work revolving around MAN all the time. Possibly because few woman are as interested as I am in doing what I do.

I found that I can do personal assistant, secretary, clerk, manager, interpreter, translator, surveyor, photographer, research assistant, food decision-maker, labourer, map reader, slide manager, peacemaker, financial planner, accountant, marketing officer, IT, 2nd-hand smoker and babysitter - ALL AT ONCE.

I am basically drained out with what I have.

Finned Whale Shark Left to Die

My first four seasons

End of Summer...

Autumn...


Winter...
Spring...

It's Summer, again...

I once stated in my FB :

I'm made for summer... shaped for autumn... built for winter... refining in spring!

And I still think, I shine best at Summer.

How time flies...

An urchin's revenge

I swear that the urchin chased me.
And I succumbed to it's attack.
It's my fault that he has to sacrifice his spines.
Into my calf.

Dive hazards occur naturally for each dives. Accident happens when we are less alert and concentration reels beyond 100%.

DIVE ALERT!

Urchins. There's a sea of them in HK waters. Well, I bumped into them in all my research sites. Maybe they coincide with my niche of study. Their proliferation are highly prompted by nutrient enriched waters. I would say, transboundary water circulation from neighbouring areas eg Pearl River Delta, China.

These polluted waters travelled all the way from southeast China and spans their strength across Hong Kong towards the Pacific Ocean. Extensive travelling they have got there.

During one of my dives, I accidentally-carelessly-innocently-unwantingly-regretfully dropped a piece of my weight onto an urchin!! And crushed, the urchin became. I felt really bad and embaressed by the careless mistake I did. All I can do was just stare, because I can 'tput the crushed urchin back into one...

A few days ago, I was again diving in a massive urchin bombshell at Lamma. The water was good with visibility 1m or less. We were lucky because there was a little sunshine. =)

Lamma actually gave me a good look about Hong Kong. There's so much to see and to discover in these turbulent waters. I've never thought that I would find biodiverse array of soft corals, frogfishes, porcupines, goats, unicorns, nudibranchs, variety of anemones, xmas trees, etc in such an environment. But like I said, HK has got hidden treasures at hidden places.

I was so occupied admiring a puffer fish shielded under a rock that I did not notice an urchin moved its way towards my back. As I turned around to check out on other divers, and with one finning, my calf ended up with 13 urchin's pricks......... It was a forceful blow as I was kicking my way to turn around. Just imagine urchin penetrating 5mm....

I swear, the urchin was not there when I waded through the rocks....

................................................
And the urchins lived to tell their tales.

7.0-mag earthquake collapses Haiti

Haiti, the poorest nation Western Hemisphere which is prone to disaster was strucked by a powerful earthquake on Wednesday, 13th Jan 2010. The strong earthquake demonstrated no mercy to the 2million population of Haitians with deaths amounted to 100,000 people.

It is the first major destructive earthquake documented in 2010, and yet there are ongoing predictions of earthquakes all over the world. With these sequence of tectonic movements, we know that the Earth is constantly shifting and alternating the boundaries down under. Some call these 'The End of the World" or "Armageddon". But scientists have lots to share in terms of environment and Earth's histories.

I'm sure, this has nothing to do with development, just pure natural disaster. We should look back to Earth's histories in order to understand it more.

Let's pray that Haitians have faith to hold on and rebuild their nation.

Turtle Blogathon!

They stay up all night to raise funds + educate on turtles + chat with friends! This fun activities is one of the first in its kind that I've heard of!


HOW YOU CAN HELP??

Just click into this website from 9pm [25th Oct] until 9pm [26th Oct].

All you have to do is CHAT about turtles! And leave the rest to them! Aren't they kind to us?

Or you can opt to publicize this fun event! Ask questions on turtles to your family and friends, and have them posted to the bloggers [below] !


WHO ARE THEY??

Turtle lovers who consist of blogger, environmentalist, conservationist, student, lecturer, animal lover, journalist etc.... who have been working hard so many years to make the world a kinder place for turtles. They have been struggling at length to educate and to conserve turtles. Their website is where you can learn all about the Turtle Conservation Centre (TCC')s effort.

Photo credit : Chan Eng Heng
Here the turtle warriors are, getting bucked up for the blogathon!!!
From left, Fong, Pelf and Chan with all their turtle signatories.

WHAT TO DO NOW??

It's your chance to do charity this weekend! So, CLICK here.

&

Have fun starting tonight!

Climate Change_Blog Action Day 2009

Everybody talks about climate change.
But, do we know exactly what is climate change?

Not until series of unfortunate events surfaced lately, that this topic of interest was given much thought. Scientists, environmentalists, geochemist, oceanographers, climate experts and others have been trying to link increasing number of natural disasters in connection with climate change. Studies remain in conduct while the pace of disasters continue stringing faster. We still could not clearly point out the link between those two, but it certainly invited heaps of arguements around the world to discuss about it.

• Typhoons...
• Hurricanes...
  
• Floods...
• Drought...
• Sand storm...
  
• Melting polar ice caps..
• Rising sea water level..
• Increasing daily temperatures..

The damage from natural disasters may not be immediately detected, but globally, this phenomenon has been recognised to be a threat to humans and multiple level of interacting ecosystems.

The damage is disastrous and massive. Climate change claim lives... people that you care and love could be affected... Climate change is too expensive to gamble with... recession, economic downturn, inflation...


Now, we know the power of CHANGING CLIMATE!

Blog Action Day 2009

It has arrived this year! Get registered and write about Climate Change, the hottest topic to discuss at recent. Date to publish : October 15th!

Disastrous September

Manila Typhoon Ketsana. Padang, Sumatra 7.7-magnitude earthquake. American Samoa earthquake tsunami. Storm hits and landslides in Vietnam, Cambodia.

Mid September kicked started abruptly with some sprinkle of rain and strong wind in the capital of Phillipines. The rain gradually picked up as monstrous wind carrying storm hit Manila and instantly forced the country into a state of calamity as claimed. Typhoon Ketsana swept the countrymen off their grounds and left them to struggle for life, until now. Deaths are still mounting up.

The storm travelled west and demonstrated its supremacy on Cambodia and Vietnam. The typhoon continued to rain floods and destroy houses while uprooting the soils. Deaths ensued.

American Samoa is almost flattened out by a tsunami triggered by 8.0-8.3 magnitude quake. The island remains in chaos and the damage is extensive. More than 90 people have been confirmed dead and the official number is still rising.

History repeats itself in Sumatra after 5 years of silence. The Pacific Ring of Fire reigns it's absolute power once again with a magnitude of 7.7 on Ritcher scale on the south of the island. Indonesia, is once again put to test after the devastating Tsunami in 2004. The earthquake rocked little Padang and show no mercy eventhough a tsunami was not in the picture. More deaths are recorded as people are believed to be trapped under piles of fallen concrete buildings and structures.

The quake force a tremor to be felt in high rise buildings throughout Malaysia. Tension arised.

In memory of tsunami 2004..

And this is only the month of October.

Free visit to aquarium

Wanting to visit the aquarium all the time but find it expensive?

Source : wallpaperfishtalk

Now, you can do it for FREE!

Universiti Malaysia Sabah is inviting members of the public to visit their aquarium for a month free-of-charge! It is your chance to find out more about these precious resources and their importance in our ecosystem. For more information, read on.

Free visit to varsity's aquarium, museum

KOTA KINABALU: Keen to educate locals on threats that marine habitats face, Universiti Malaysia Sabah's marine aquarium and museum will not charge visitors an entry fee for a month in an awareness campaign that starts today.

Poster displays and audio-visual presentations on Sabah's marine life will also be held at the facilities located in the university's Borneo Marine Research Institute.

"Modern scientific knowledge is key to conserving Sabah's marine heritage and this is why the institute is holding the awareness campaign on issues related to ocean resources.

"There is a need to manage our marine biological heritage to protect the whole marine ecosystem.

"The message we want to send out is the need to lessen pressure on exploitation of resources, and to strengthen critical habitats.

"We also hope to foster a wise use of resources concept at a time when the sea is facing threat of climate change," the institute said in a press release by the university's corporate relations department.

Special lectures will also be conducted during the campaign.

For more details, contact the institute at 088-32000, extension 2331.

Extracted from NST.com

Reefs for the Future

I could not keep track how many have supported this campaign. But, I am clearly aware that this had an impact on divers who clicked on this banner I had put up a couple of months ago.

Thank you for your support & letting me know how much you cared for reefs!

Global Warming Mind Map

When I went through this mind map, I instantly felt the urge to blog about it. This mind map sums up the global warming crisis for those who had no time to read and find out about it. Some who are not bothered by the issue, may end up a little bit distracted by the diagram.

Anyways, I felt that it's a good and easy way to relate the cause and effects uprooting from global warming. There be might some areas that did not occur to be affected as you have always known, but somehow you may find it related in the diagram!

Courtesy of : J. Genovese

Have fun studying the map!