Halimi's Surface Intervals

Give Sharks a Fighting Chance, Sign the Petition.

2011-11-19T23:17:00.001+08:00

Take a look at these grim statistics:

73 Millions sharks are killed each year to cater for the demands of the shark fin market
In 2008, Hong Kong imported 100,000,000 kg of shark fins. They are the single biggest market for the fins. The top suppliers are Spain, Singapore (probably a transit point for fins from the Asean region), Taiwan and Indonesia.
Due to this over-exploitation, in the North Atlantic, the population of oceanic white-tip sharks has already declined by 70% in the 1990s. The scalloped hammerheads have declined more than 80% in the Northwestern Atlantic since the 1980s.

Source: www.oceana.org

There are some glitter of hope, though. recently there have been a surge in support against shark-finning and the shark fin industry. Palau, a small nation in the Pacific Ocean, established the world's first shark sanctuary in 2009. The Maldives followed suit in early 2010, then Honduras, Bahamas, Guam, Chile, Mexico and most recently, the Marshall Islands in Micronesia. You can read more here.

What can you do? For starters, support the Project AWARE petition against shark finning. The petition site is here. I have put up a large banner on our website at oceanelements.my so you can just click the banner and it will take you directly to the petition site. Please do your bit and help save this majestic animal for our future generation. How majestic are they? Well, join us diving and find out for yourselves!

Sign the petition

Reflections

2011-11-12T01:44:00.001+08:00

1 Sept 2011 marked a full year since my resignation from, for most part, sixteen years of successful career in engineering with the power utility company Tenaga Nasional Berhad. My last position was a manager in the Quality Assurance department. I have absolutely no ounce of regret leaving a good-paying, stable job in order to pursue one of my few passions in life - scuba diving.

I started the scuba diving business about seven years ago with two friends. The first three years were quite dreadful, with very few diving certifications produced and insignificant business transactions. The two partners decided to focus on other business ventures, and we parted ways. I was adamant to continue doing this business as I believed that I could achieve something in this industry. I still hold firm this belief.

I roped in my wife Muzie into the business and she turned out to be much better at doing this business that I was. She still is much better at it that I am. Slowly we began to turn around Ocean Elements and put ourselves on the diving industry map. Our number of diving certifications went up five folds and is still increasing. Our dive trips attract good number of divers from those whom we have certified that we have no need to advertise the trips beyond our pool of divers. We are still able to maintain a perfect zero accident record until today.

We are still not out of the woods completely though. Numerous challenges have come to our doorsteps, some from sources we could not predict. Along the way, we bid adieu to a few people due to various sticky issues and conflict of interests. Divers come and divers go, it's all part and parcel of being in this business. What's important is to find new clients to replace those who are no longer with us.

I believe we have a clear vision on how we would like to conduct our business. We never look back. God's willing, we will make it in this industry, doing business the way we think it should be done.

Dive Boat Accident in Tenggol, Nov 2010

2010-11-26T08:33:00.007+08:00

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On Saturday, 6 Nov 2010, the catamaran dive boat owned by Abang Zol's Discovery Divers sank while on its way to send a group of 15 divers and snorkellers back to Dungun after a day trip to Tenggol. Zul, one of their crew and a very experienced boatman was handling the catamaran when the tragedy struck. I got bits and pieces of information about the accident from Abang Aziz, the owner of Tenggol Resort (where Discovery Divers is based), who last communicated with Zul before the catamaran went down. I haven't had a chance to speak to Zul himself so some of my information and opinion here may not be correct. I will update this writeup later when I get more information directly from those involved.

According to the local news, the catamaran (picture above) sank around 6.45pm, about 10 nautical miles from Tenggol Island. She supposedly sprang a leak somewhere on the stern side and began to take water. Zul tried to turn the boat back to Tenggol but could not make it. He managed to call Abang Aziz from his mobile phone before instructing all the passengers to jump into the water. The group then drifted through the night in the open sea for nearly 16 hours and was found about 16 nautical miles to the South of Tenggol, near Kemaman.

In my opinion, the trip should never have been organized, given the sea condition during the time. I was in Tenggol the week before the accident (see my previous blog on the Whaleshark) and at the end of the trip, the weather was already horrible. The day we went back, we faced 1 - 2 meter waves in the open sea and that was already quite challenging for Zul. It took us more than 1 hour to get back to Dungun; a trip that usually takes no more than 30 minutes on the catamaran. At times, the big waves brought in lots of water from the stern of the catamaran. During my stay in Tenggol, I also saw that the weather usually turned for the worse in the late afternoon. That was why we decided to leave the island early in the morning.

I was surprised to find out that a group of people still went to Tenggol the following weekend. I would have strongly advised any of my own divers to cancel their plan to go there and just wait for the next season. Tenggol will always be there. So will the Whalesharks. Also, doing a daytrip means that you will leave the island late in the evening, when the sea condition is worse and you do not have a lot of daylight left.

According to Abang Aziz, the unfortunate daytrippers left Tenggol very late that evening, around 6.30pm. There was only 30 minutes of daylight left and the sea condition was getting worse. When the tragedy fell upon them, it was already dark which severely diminished their chances of being rescued much, much earlier. They spent the next 16 hours floating in the sea, in pitch black. Alhamdulillah, in my 13 years of diving I have never experienced being drifted in the sea for more than 30 minutes and never, ever at night. I don't wish to have this kind of experienced for myself or to any group of divers under my care.

I would have stayed on the island and leave early the next morning when you have the whole day to get to the mainland and most probably better sea condition. It will probably mean paying extra for the room and meals and sleeping in whatever clothing on me (since daytrippers normally do not bring extra clothing wth them and most come to the island already in their lycras or wetsuits) but as these people have painfully learnt, that would have been a much better option than floating in the water for hours, wet, hungry and tired. Things could have turned much, much worse.

The dive operator is also responsible in some ways for accepting clients during the monsoon, when the weather condition was already bad and growing worse. Worse, these were daytrippers who would naturally finish their dives late in the afternoon and would then want to leave the island and get back to their hotel on the mainland. They should also have insisted the group to stay on the island for the night.

I believe this tragedy could have been avoided if everybody pays more attention to the safety aspects of organizing a dive trip. Dive operators must be more safety conscious. Divers should be more safety conscious. Cancel a dive when the condition is not good. When you lost RM15,000 worth of diving equipment (as one of the survivors quoted to the local newspaper), there is nobody you should blame but yourself. There's always another day, another dive.

"Have fun, dive safely"

(Discovery Divers catamaran picture courtesy of Nari Rahman. The last three pictures above are courtesy of the Malaysian local media - Utusan Malaysia, The Star and Bernama)

Tenggol Island, October 2010

2010-11-25T20:29:00.007+08:00

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I was at Tenggol Island in late October for our last dive trip before the monsoon hit the East coast of the Peninsular and the weather and visibility was absolutely amazing. Diving with my PADI Open Water + Advanced Open Water students Safwan, Jimmy Loh (aka Shamsol Siron) and En. Baharim, we had 20-25m visibility at Tokong Timur on several occasions.

The guys also saw the much sought after Whaleshark on their 4th open water dives, while enjoying 20m viz. How much luckier can you get! A Whaleshark had been spotted at Tokong Timur for a couple of days before we arrived on the island, so I decided to take the guys out there for their final Open Water dive. As we swam near the North section of the rock, it came to us from the opposite direction. It was the same young shark I photographed so many times in September last year so I was really happy to see it back in Tenggol. I saw the shark during a few more dives after that and got much better pictures of it this time. Definitely will make good image submissions to the Whaleshark database at www.whaleshark.org.

Muzie and a group of divers came to Tenggol as soon as they heard the news. She didn't see the young shark, but saw a bigger Whaleshark about 8-9m in length at Tokong Timur. As soon as they finished their last dive, the bad weather arrived and we said goodbye to the good visibility in Tenggol. The weather turned nasty the following days and with that, it was time to pack up and leave.

This diving season, the Whalesharks arrived just as the monsoon hit Tenggol and we were the lucky few to be there. The dives were good, I had good students and we saw the Whalesharks in all their glory at 25 meter visibility. As always, I thank God for the experience.

A Really Cool Idea for an Artificial Reef

2010-10-19T15:31:00.005+08:00

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Now why didn't we think of this earlier?

It definitely is a much brighter idea than submerging a bus or a lorry out in the reefs (and starting a long-term damage to the fragile ecosystem!):

Full story here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319593/Amazing-new-artificial-reef-Mexico-sculptures-real-people.html

Check these out guys and girls:

Corporate Volunteering in Conservation Activities

2010-06-23T22:06:00.006+08:00

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Ocean Elements was featured on the Project AWARE website highlighting "Corporate Volunteering in Asia Pacific".

See the Project AWARE website here:

http://projectaware.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/corporate-volunteering-asia-pacific/

Dive for Earth Day 2010

2010-05-03T23:27:00.010+08:00

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Last 24 - 26 April 2010, Ocean Elements organized an underwater cleanup event at Tenggol Island, Dungun, Terengganu, attended by sixteen of our divers. This is the third consecutive year we organized such an event and finally, the Terengganu state government took notice of our effort. Dato Zaabar Mohd Adib, Chairman of the State Committee for Tourism, Culture, Arts and Heritage and Tn Hj Zainal, Dungun City Councilor together with representatives from the Fisheries Department, the local fishermen associations and several journalists came on the first day to see how we ran the event. We took the opportunity to discuss with Dato Zaabar the issues of coral reef conservation around Tenggol Island and especially the thrash dumping by local fisherman around the boat mooring area in Teluk Dalam. Hopefully something positive will come out of this discussion. The Fisheries Department representative already promised to organize a dialog session with the local fishermen to get them to stop throwing their rubbish into the sea and especially over the coral reefs.

About 80kg of rubbish comprising mainly of food cans, glass bottles and fishing nets were removed from two dive sites. In addition, about 100 Crown-of-Thorn starfish were also removed from sites were they were found to be in tight groups.

Finally, as our usual tradition, the participants were awarded a complimentary PADI Specialty Course and this time around, they got to learn about the Project AWARE Coral Reef Conservation.

Thank you to all our divers who have participated in this year's underwater cleanup in celebration of Earth Day 2010.

WakaTobi & Buton Trip, Mar 2010

2010-04-06T16:44:00.006+08:00

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A group of my Indonesian friends recently organized a dive trip to Buton and WaKaToBi in Southeast Sulawesi and somehow during the planning process, came up one seat short of twelve. I quickly put my name on their list and booked my flight to Makassar. Reko then got us on Expressair to Bau-bau on the island of Buton where we met the rest of the group.

Betoambari Airport at Bau-bau

The Expressair flight to Bau-bau deserve a special mention here. Firstly, the small Dornier aircraft only has a 10kg luggage limit. My stuffs, inclusive of all the underwater photography equipment, was more than 10kg over the limit and I had to fork out Rp25,000 (almost RM10) per excess kilogram. Then, once we got to Bau-bau, we were cordially informed that our luggage were still in Makassar because the small flight was overloaded so they had to hold our baggages and checked them on the next flight. I thus went for the first two dives at Pantai Nirwana, just outside Bau-bau, using rental equipment; something I have not done in the last ten years of my diving, haha. Our luggage arrived six hours later.

Nirwana Beach, Buton

Tongali Ridge, Siompu, Buton

The next day we dived at Siompu, along the Tongali Ridge. The crest of the underwater ridge lies at between 15 to 30 meter depth and from there, slopes steeply into the blue. A couple of white tip sharks patrolled the deep water and occasionally came up to greet our party. In shallower parts of the reef, local fishermen install bamboo fish traps which were dropped onto the reef from their small sampans.

On the morning of the second day, our group took a two-and-a-half-hour bumpy ride on Kijangs and Avanzas to Pasar Wajo on the Southeastern side of Buton Island where we met the liveaboard which would be our home for the next six days. After making two dives in Pasar Wajo, led by Ben of Wasage Divers, the liveaboard made its way overnight into WaKaToBi which got its name from the four major islands in that area - Wangi-wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia and Binongko. The archipelago is also known as “Kepulauan Tukang Besi” or the islands of metalsmiths.

We dived around the islands of Anano, Runduma, Indaa, Tomia and Kaledupa. Most of the dives are along very steep and vertical slopes that goes from 5m all the way down into the abyss. Visibility was generally 30+ meters, the Gorgonians and barrel sponges are massive and coral coverage is impressive. We did night dives at Hoga Island near Kaledupa, along steep walls that go down to 20+ meters and overhangs and inlets inhabited by sponge crabs, decorator crabs, lobsters and lots of critters. Hoga is also the base for Operation Wallacea, a UK-based marine research centre.

On the last day of the trip, the liveaboard made its way back to Pasar Wajo where we did the last two dives of the trip. The last dive was at one of the local jetty where just 3m beneath the jetty lives a colony of more than 20 Mandarinfish and a host of other reef fish and moray eels. I spent almost an hour there just taking shots of that beautiful creature. It was just unfortunate that we did not have time to do a sunset dive there to see their mating ritual.

My own personal highlight of this trip was the dive at Tomia where I found a small sea fan with two huge (well, relatively) H. bargibanti pygmy seahorse. Halim our dive guide later found one more on the same fan. I was so elated at being able to find such an elusive critter on my own that I was practically smiling to myself throughout the dive, haha.

Terima kasih to the ever jovial Yayu for a well-organized trip and many thanks to Reko, Prima, Danti, Ratih, Nir, Aboy Sambel, Dito, Rizal, Pak Tono and Meis Musida for making this trip a very enjoyable one. Based on what you guys said, Ambon and Alor are now high on my to-dive list. The only thing is, I absolutely definitely must bring my favourite and very lovely tea lady along to share the wonderful experience.

Manta-stic Raja Ampat

2010-02-08T18:43:00.009+08:00

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I organized our very first trip to the Raja Ampat region in West Papua, Indonesia from 10 - 17 December 2009. The preparation and information gathering began all the way back as far as January last year so this was for us, in every sense, the penultimate dive trip for 2009.

After researching and consulting with fellow dive operators who have organized trips to this remote region in Indonesia, we decided to go with Grand Komodo Tours, a 100% Indonesian-owned travel and tour company based in Bali. The vessel we booked for the trip was the KLM Temukira (temukira means dolphin) and it turned out to be a very good choice indeed.

People already recognize Ocean Elements for organizing dive trips which are not the cheapest in the market but ones that give the divers who follow us, values to match exactly what they pay for. Plus, we like to be as transparent as possible. I hate to go on a dive trip only to be told during the trip that this thing or that thing needs to be paid extra and not included in the trip price. Thus, when I organize a trip, I try not to do that to my clients. "Do to others what you would like to be done to you" is how the saying goes, I believe.

Also, we believe that many divers only go on an expensive trips like Raja Ampat probably once in their diving life or for those with more disposable income, probably once every few years. Therefore, they don't mind paying more for a hassle-free trip, good diving and excellent service. For this trip, we got exactly those.

The seven of us flew to Makassar and then on to Sorong via Merpati Air and got there without any problem. The crew from Temukira were already on standby at the tiny airport where baggage handling was conducted without the aid of any electronic system whatsoever and managed to locate, retrieve and transport all our bags to the waiting vans in no more than half an hour. That was really good considering how chaotic Sorong Airport was.

From the airport we went straight to Temukira, stopping on the way at a local supermarket to buy some Pokari Sweat isotonic drinks, snacks and such.

Temukira has 6 air-conditioned cabins for only 12 divers and run by a crew of 12 including three divemasters. As we were the only divers on the trip, we practically got the whole ship to ourselves.

We did four dives a day for most of the trip, at selected dive sites amongst the islands of Wai, Kri, Mansuar, Fam and crossing the Equator line near Kawe, all the way to Wayag. The dive sites are numerous and varied and presented everything from macros to mantas, pygmy seahorses to pelagics. Indeed, you can spend months if not years diving in the Raja Ampat area and still will not be able to cover all the islands.

At Cape Kri, I spend the entire dive along a small portion of the fringing reef and saw in the sixty minutes there, schools of barracudas, jacks, bumphead parrotfish and fusiliers all mingled within the same area.

At Aerborek, there is a manta cleaning station where I saw five Manta rays taking turns to be cleaned by wrasses. Just up ahead where I was, other divers in our group saw another ten mantas doing just the same. Now when was the last time you saw fifteen mantas in one area?

At Wayag, we hiked up a hill which offered a grand view of the clumps of islands with clear blue water in between in which mantas play. That view of Raja Ampat alone was worth the trip.

In short, in all my life diving, I have never experience anything near the dives in Raja Ampat. And diving in the area for six days offered us just samples of what Raja Ampat has to offer and believe me, there are much, much more out there. The only thing is, the region of the four kings has to be experienced by liveaboard.

This signboard at Sorong Airport tells you exactly where the money you paid for the conservation fee goes to

The Wobbegong or Carpet shark is aplenty in Raja Ampat

The P-47D Thunderbolt, a WWII plane wreck lying at 30m deep near Way Island

Media Coverage of the Pulau Tinggi Beach Cleanup & Reef Survey Event

2009-12-05T11:17:00.006+08:00

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Here are some news clips / articles from Utusan Malaysia, Harian Metro and URTV (entertainment magazine) on the recent Project AWARE Beach Cleanup and Green Fins Coral Reef Survey at Pulau Tinggi, Mersing, Johor last 23 - 25 October 2009.

Thank you to our the media correspondents En Amir from Utusan, En Shamran from Metro and to the infamous Huzz of URTV for their excellent articles. To us, the mass media are very important channels that we can leverage in advocating the importance of coral reef conservation to the Malaysian public and we are very grateful to have Utusan and Harian Metro, as well as the TV Channel NTV7 covering our recent event.

Harian Metro 24 Nov 2009 - "Young Divers, Our Hope" (not literal translation).

Utusan Malaysia 5 Dec 2009 - "Pulau Tinggi Reef Conservation".

URTV November 2009 Edition, Full-spread Article - "Beach Cleanup with Shazroul" (Shazroul, who is a new singer with amazingly powerful voice, took part in our beach cleanup! Thanks a lot for coming along Shaz).

Project AWARE Beach Cleanup & Green Fins Survey, Pulau Tinggi, Oct09

2009-12-05T09:55:00.020+08:00

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Ocean Elements Sdn Bhd, in collaboration with the Department of Marine Parks Malaysia, organized a beach cleanup and coral reef survey at Pulau Tinggi, Mersing, Johor from 23 – 25 October 2009. This year’s event was attended by 35 divers and 10 media representatives from the local TV station NTV7, daily newspapers Utusan Malaysia and Harian Metro, travel magazines Libur, magazine Nona and Kunang-kunang (Firefly Airlines in-flight magazine).

The Project AWARE beach cleanup was held at the local village, where 22 children from the only school on the island joined the divers. An estimated 70kg of rubbish comprising mainly of tin cans and plastic bottles were collected from the 2km-long beach right in front of the primary school. The children also attended a talk on the importance of coral reef and ocean conservation by a Marine Parks staff, En. Lotfi Ali.

At the end of the beach cleanup event, Ocean Elements donated Project AWARE posters and several books on marine life to the school. The children who have helped in the beach cleanup received the Project AWARE activity books and certificates and also stationeries donated by our corporate sponsors - the British American Tobacco company.

Later in the afternoon, PADI Instructor Cola (Azhari) and myself conducted discover Scuba Diving for nine of the older kids from the kampung. They took the plunge at the kampung jetty.

The Department of Marine Park Malaysia “Green Fins” project (www.greenfins.net) is a coral reef conservation initiative which is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Ocean Elements Sdn Bhd is one of the dive operators who are actively involved in Green Fins coral reef surveys and has already completed one survey during the previous “Dive for Earth Day 2009” event held at Tenggol Island, Terengganu in April this year. In Pulau Tinggi last October, participating divers took part in conducting reef surveys at two dive sites. The survey results were later handed over to the Marine Parks officers for their analysis and statistics.

32 diver participants of this year’s event also took part in the PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy specialty course, conducted by Azhari (Cola) and myself and assisted by six of my PADI Divemaster trainees as part of their internship program.

This has been the most successful conservation event organized by Ocean Elements to date, with good participations by our own divers, divers from our corporate sponsors, staffs from the Marine Park Department and also the cheerful children of Pulau Tinggi village. Participants are all eagerly waiting to see this event (and their faces) being featured on the local television channel NTV7 “Breakfast Show” and also to receive their Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty Diver certification cards from PADI!

All top-side images courtesy of Razi Mokti and Anuar Johan. Thanks bros.

www.greenfins-malaysia.dmpm.nre.gov.my

Seahorses for Traditional Chinese Medicine

2009-09-27T21:29:00.008+08:00

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According to the "Endangered Species Handbook" (read the full article here), 20 Million seahorses are caught annually from our oceans in order to satisfy the market for Traditional Chinese Medicine. A study conducted from 1993 to 1995 by Biologist Amanda Vincent revealed, not surprisingly, China as the biggest market for dried seahorses followed by Taiwan and Singapore.

I have seen some dead seahorses brought back from the Philippines by relatives who did not know any better and bought them as souvenirs. During my recent trip to Sipadan/Mabul in Sabah, I decided to visit the local market at Semporna and found dried seahorses and pipefishes sold there. The sight was disturbing.

If you're a diver, just take pictures and then leave them alone.

If you're considering buying them for their medicinal properties, I'm sure there are many other alternatives you can try.

The same goes for getting them for souvenirs. Get those eco-friendly ones, plenty of them to choose during your vacation.

Pulau Tenggol in Wide Angle

2009-09-27T21:02:00.009+08:00

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I spent many September days in a Komuter train, commuting between Seremban and KL, while waiting for my car to be repaired after a nasty accident recently.

I'm so glad I got my new MacBook Pro 13" with it's 8-hour battery stamina to keep me company on those days. Better yet, the 1 1/2 hour commute gave me plenty of time to learn to use Adobe Lightroom 2 (LR) for simple photo editing. I have to say, LR is amazing! Nowadays, I use Photoshop only for those pictures that need serious editing. For most of the recent pictures I took, LR is all I need.

During my August dive trip to Tenggol Island, visibility was around 20 meters or more at many dives sites such as Tokong Timur, Moonraker and Amazing Grace. Thus, I had the opportunity to get many nice shots that require very little post-processing. All the shots below requires very minimal editing, all done in LR and all done during my Komuter trips. Enjoy.

Whaleshark in Pulau Tenggol, Aug09

2009-09-05T12:23:00.011+08:00

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Tenggol is a small island (only about 3km in length) about 30 minutes by boat from Dungun, Terengganu. Since July this year, divers have reported consistent sightings of four Whalesharks (Rhincodon typus) around the island and a few Manta rays (Manta birostris) too. Almost every weekend the three resorts on the island were packed with divers hoping to see these creatures.

In my twelve years of diving, I have never seen a Whaleshark. Manta yes, Thresher shark yes but not this shark, the largest of all fish species. I had three PADI Open Water Diver and a Rescue Diver students to complete their certification last August 2009 and managed to, err, gently persuade them to follow me to Tenggol. We got to the island and quickly got through the training dives, assisted by four of my Divemaster trainees. Then, it was time to set up my trusty ol' Nikon D70 in its underwater casing and out to catch a glimpse of the shark. I cannot even remember when was the last time I went out diving feeling very nervous and very excited at the same time. The last time was probably during my very first Open Water experience with Ejam Shair, my PADI instructor that time. Why? Because just about every diver I know have already seen the Whaleshark in Tenggol and have bragged so much about it and there I was, making my 600th dive or so and still have not met this famous filter feeder. I hate to admit it but I was nervous, in a good way somewhat.

Azrul of Discovery Divers led the dive at Teluk Nakhoda. We went in, head out into the greenish, plankton-filled water and kept our depth around 15 meters or so. Visibility was just about 5 to 7 meters and there was nothing to see. We just followed Azrul and kept looking left, right, above and under for the guy. My D70 was set on Aperture-priority @ F/5.6, the Ikelite DS125 strobe already fully charged and on standby and my fingers never left the shutter button. We continued swimming, everybody filled of anticipation.

Then it came. I think I saw it first, swimming about five meters underneath me and coming from behind. I banged my steel pointer furiously on the tank but could not make any sound (I later realized that the tank had a plastic mesh wrapped over it and I was banging on plastic, haha). Instantly, I switched to flutter kick and furiously swam to keep up with the shark. It swam ever so gracefully but those massive tail fin moved it so fast in the water that I could only followed it for less than five minutes. It was definitely a juvenile since the upper tail fin was much larger than the lower one and was about seven meters long. The up-close-and-personal experience was exhilarating. This first encounter only lasted no more than five minutes and it quickly disappeared into the murky water. But that five minutes was enough for me to get three shots off my Nikon. I had proof.

Osman, my Divemaster trainee, with his Apollo Bio-fins was able to get underneath the shark for this photo.

In the next four days, I went to the same spot every evening around 5.30pm and was able to meet the same young shark four more times, sometimes several appearances during the same dive. We even made one morning dive at Teluk Nakhoda and saw it there too so it was probably hanging out there most of the time. Out of these encounters, here are some of the best pictures.

Azhar, my other Divemaster trainee, was using a borrowed Canon G10 to get some videos of the shark.

This photo was colour-corrected in Photoshop. The markings on the Whaleshark body is unique to each individual shark and can be used to identify the animal.

I left Tenggol after six long days there with three PADI Open Water, one PADI Rescue and one PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certifications but most importantly, I brought back memories (and proof) of my first encounters with a young Rhincodon typus. Such encounters pull everything back into perspective. This is what diving is all about - being able to go underwater and meet such wonderful creatures that God has created for us to appreciate, so that we can acknowledge His omnipotence. As a Muslim, we say Alhamdulillah to Him.

Dive for Earth Day and Green Fins Survey 2009 - Tenggol Island

2009-05-12T01:16:00.008+08:00

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Ocean Elements Sdn Bhd recently organised an underwater cleanup event under the Project AWARE “Dive for Earth Day” and a coral reef survey under the “Green Fins” banner, from 24 – 26 April 2009 at Tenggol Island. This year’s event was attended by 14 divers as well as 2 staffs from the Marine Park Department, under the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment Malaysia.

This program was a follow-up to the underwater cleanup event held at the same location from 28 – 30 August last year. During that event, more than 100kg of rubbish comprising mostly of tin cans, plastic and metal parts were removed from the Teluk Air Tawar bay area. Most of the rubbish came from the fishing vessels taking shelter in the bay area in between their fishing runs. This year’s event focused solely on removing the huge bundles of mooring lines and fishing nets that have been discarded by fishermen over the coral reefs for years. During the three dives conducted in the bay area, more than 80kg of lines and nets were successfully brought to the surface for disposal.

The divers also participated in the “Green Fins” coral reef survey, an initiative by Marine Park Department Malaysia and supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Ocean Elements was recently appointed as one of the “Green Fins” dive operator and Tenggol Island was picked as the location for our very first survey. The surveys were conducted at three locations around the island and the results were submitted to the Marine Park office for their analysis and statistics.

Green Fins: www.greenfins-malaysia.dmpm.nre.gov.my
Dept of Marine Park: www.dmpm.nre.gov.my

Pulau Tinggi, Johor - Mar09

2009-03-19T18:53:00.012+08:00

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Early this month I made my first ever visit to Pulau Tinggi near Mersing, Johor. Jabatan Taman Laut (Department of Marine Park) Malaysia has a centre there and I wanted to see how we can utilise their place to run our conservation programs this year. During the visit, Petrosains Kuala Lumpur was conducting a program they called "My Outdoor Science" for a group of lecturers selected from the various teaching institutes around the country.

I did a couple of dives with Farouk, my old friend who's also a PADI Instructor and who has been running a small diving operation at Pulau Tinggi since last year. Farouk had graciously offered me a room above his dive centre for the duration of my visit.

During this trip, I had both the Panasonic Lumix TZ15 and LX3 camera for my underwater photography. The visibility was not so good and I managed to get only a handful of good images from the three dives I did there.

Lumix TZ15 + INON S-2000 strobe, 1/30 @ F3.3, ISO200, cloudy white balance, spot metering. S-2000 strobe on manual mode.

The highlight of the trip was the pair of Tigertail seahorses (Hippocampus comes), so named because of their distinctive yellow-black bands on their tails. Seahorses are ovoviviparous meaning they keep their eggs inside the adult's body until they hatch. What make a seahorse so special is that the male adult carries the eggs, not the female. It seemed to me that the male I saw in Pulau Tinggi was positively pregnant and would not budge from it's hiding place under the rubble. The female was more cooperative and I waited for her to climb up a dead piece of coral for the shot above.

As can be seen, the sea bed was covered with sedimentation and coupled with bad overall visibility at the dive site, I had to wait quite a bit of time for the silt to settle and the seahorses to get "in position" for the shots above. In all the shots, the strobe power was manually dialled down to prevent over-exposure since the subjects were somewhat close to the camera.

I was very happy because this time the INON S-2000 strobe worked flawlessly. Good exposure was achieved and the colours came out nice (including the green colour of the water there, haha).

The more expensive Lumix LX3, as expected gave good, nice colours as can be seen in the pictures of the Anemonefish below.

Lumix LX3 + INON D-2000. Both images above taken at 1/500 @ F8 manual exposure, ISO200, cloudy white balance, spot-metering and INON D-2000 on manual setting.

All the images were cropped and adjusted to correct their white- and black-points and then very slight adjustments were made in the images contrast and brightness. Overall, the images right out of both cameras were quite good already.

Panasonic Lumix Dive Community 1st Trip - KK

2009-03-01T00:45:00.011+08:00

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I just came back from the inaugural dive trip of the Panasonic Lumix Dive Community to Kota Kinabalu last week. The dive trip was organized to coincide with the Panasonic launching of their new camera and camcorder lineup, held at the Shangri-la Rasa Ria Resort on 25 - 27 February 2009.

A couple of dives were arranged around the the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park and I had with me the Lumix TZ15 camera and underwater casing and the new INON S-2000 strobe to try out.

Panasonic Lumix TZ15 with INON S-2000 strobe, wireless trigger.

Panasonic Lumix TZ15 with INON S-2000 strobe, triggered using optical cable.

I tried out both the "conventional" optical cable triggering and the new "wireless" trigger from INON which utilizes a set of mirrors to reflect light from the built-in camera flash to the S-2000 strobe sensor. Unfortunately, the optical trigger did not produce satisfactory results.

F3.3 @ 1/30, ISO 200, manual white balance, -1.3 EV.

The image above was taken with the S-2000 strobe in S-TTL mode and triggered using optical cable connection. The honeycomb moray eel was about 50cm away. The first few shots came out so badly that I thought there must be something wrong with the camera auto white balance. I switched to manual WB but the colour I got only improved very slightly. Also, the images taken were consistently over-exposed that I had to apply a -1.3EV compensation in order to have a somewhat acceptable image. It was very frustrating since I had such a good subject to shoot but could not get the camera to give me good colours. The next few dives gave almost similar results. Swapping cameras did not solve the problem so the culprit must be the strobe.

My suspicion was confirmed when on one of the dives, I set the camera on manual white balance and then took pictures with and without flash. The results are shown below. Both images were taken using the following settings: F3.3 @ 1/250 sec, ISO 100, manual white balance, spot metering on the white ball.

Strobe switched ON

Strobe OFF

As can clearly be seen, the picture taken without the use of the strobe has colours that appeared natural and close to what I could see down there, while the one with the strobe on was absolutely horrible.

During the last dive for the trip which was a night dive, I went down with the INON S-2000 set to be triggered using the "wireless" system. The results were much more satisfactory.

So what's the problem mate? I got in touch with INON Japan and was told that the problem could be caused by incorrect synchronization between the TZ15 camera built-in flash and the INON strobe, which could have come from a bad optical cable connection. I need to check the optical cable end which is connected to the camera underwater casing to make sure that it is flat and in the right position to receive light from the built-in flash.

I will do the necessary adjustment in the next few days before my dive trip to Pulau Tinggi in Johor and will post the results here.

Panasonic Lumix TZ15 - Pool Pictures

2009-02-23T14:12:00.009+08:00

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Here's the pictures from the pool session in Cheras on 7 Feb 2009, taken using the Panasonic Lumix TZ15 compact camera. I just came back from a work assignment in India and had some free time today to take a look at the images and do some minor adjustment. All the images have only been adjusted for their black- and white-point levels.

Here's where the 28mm wide-angle lense on the TZ15 came into good use. I like the nice capture of the surface ripples on the pool bottom. 1/400 @ F8, ISO200, cloudy white balance, no flash.

The TZ15 did a nice job capturing the ripples and wake on the surface of the pool. If an external strobe is available, we can try and get a better exposure on the boy. 1/1600 @ F8, ISO200, cloudy white balance, no flash.

The best image for the day. Nice capture of the sun ray coming down from behind Mimi's son, my not-so-cooperative model for the day, haha. Again, the 28mm lens gets you close to the subject for a somewhat acceptable exposure. 1/400 @ F8, ISO200, cloudy white balance, no flash.

New Year, New Toy - Panasonic Lumix TZ15

2009-02-09T03:02:00.011+08:00

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The Year of the Ox certainly brought me early prosperity with the arrival of a brand new Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ15 compact camera and its underwater housing, on loan basis to yours truly, courtesy of Panasonic Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

The TZ15 came with a Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens with a focal length of 28mm on the wide-angle side which, for my underwater photography purposes, is what I'm quite excited to explore. The 3" 460k-pixel LCD will help me a lot underwater, that I'm pretty sure already.

As expected from a compact camera in this class, the TZ15 does not offer manual, aperture- or speed-priority shooting modes. Therefore, I will be trying either the "Underwater" scene mode or the "Normal picture" mode for my underwater shoots. There are three features of this camera which I immediately liked after a few minutes of going through the controls and manuals:

It's very easy to change the exposure compensation (EV) value using the directional buttons on the right side of the LCD

Important setting (to me at least) like white balance and metering mode can easily be accessed through the "quick menu" (Q-menu button)

Setting up a custom white balance is surprisingly easy.

The underwater casing looks cool too. I like the design of the flash diffuser (top-left side of the round lens port) which incorporated a "trench" for you to pass through an optical cable from an external strobe such as those from INON to the back of the diffuser. The casing also has a built-in slot to nicely hold an INON optical sensor in place. The casing was designed with INON strobe in mind I believe.

I had the camera with me last weekend at the Cheras pool during the Reef Check training session and will post up the pictures here later.

The First Award

2009-02-01T19:01:00.006+08:00

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On Friday 30 January 2009, I received an email from the Project AWARE Foundation which reads:

Dear Halimi

Congratulations! Project AWARE is delighted to award Ocean Elements the 2008 Environmental Achievement Award.

After reviewing your application, we have determined that your dive operation has met all requirements set forth for Project AWARE’s Environmental Achievement Award and shown exemplary efforts to conserve aquatic environments through education, advocacy and action. Therefore, we’re proud to name you an official 2008 recipient!

That's Award Number One. Two more to go.

Selayar Island, Makassar - Images

2009-02-01T18:17:00.014+08:00

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My three-year-old Compaq Presario laptop finally died on me. The DC supply circuitry on the motherboard must have gone kaput, I believe. However, when I sent it to the HP service centre at Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, they told me that the laptop has got everything from a common cold to cervical cancer. It was doomed, they preached. However, all is not lost they helpfully added. There is hope but it comes with a price tag of RM2,500. Oh, please HP. You don't need to have a Degree in Computing to know that it costs less than RM2,500 to get the latest incarnation of the Compaq model and it would be utter stupidity for me to pay that much to revive my aging companion. With a tinge of sadness, I paid RM95 which HP asked me for the examination, took my old friend back and performed my own surgery. The hard disk is still good. Most importantly, the data is 100% intact (sorry, HP technical personnel, either you didn't even bother to check or you think the owner is so naive that he'd believe anything you put down in your report).

Here they are, saved from the hands of those doomsday preachers at HP Service Centre at Jalan Gelenggang, my pictures from Selayar Island, Makassar, South Sulawesi. 100% intact.

My friend and fellow underwater photographer, Pak Reko, ascending the walls at "Ani's Hideaway".

Nice healthy corals are abundant in Selayar

"Sunken Island" gave us about 35 meter visibility during that trip.

At the end of the diving day...

In the background is Selayar Island Resort's fine dive boat.

Selayar Island, Makassar - New Year 2009 Dive Trip

2009-01-03T14:03:00.006+08:00

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We arrived at the LCCT just before midnight last night on AirAsia flight AK1027 from Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia after spending the New Year diving in Selayar Island. What a trip that was.

It started as just a "recce" trip for me and Muzie and ended up as an absolutely amazing getaway with a bunch of close friends. We originally intended to go visit Makassar to experience firsthand the wall dives around Selayar and whether it will be feasible logistically and economically to organize trips there. Somehow or rather, a few divers found out about the trip and decided to join us. Million thanks to our good friend Pak Reko and his wife lovely wife Yasri who entertained our group and introduced us to Makassar's famous pisang epe, daging konro, kacang disco and the best ever kepala ikan (red snapper fish head) I have ever tasted. The ayam goreng Makassar and popiah, well, we'll save that's for another dive trip to SulSel, haha.

The journey from Makassar (used to be called Ujung Pandang) to Selayar Island which lies in the Flores Sea, was an adventure all in itself. Four hours by van on bumpy roads to the port of Tanjung Bira, followed by a 2-hour ferry trip to the island and then another hour on more bumpy roads to the resort on the West coast of Selayar. Hopefully, the planned flight service from Makassar's Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport to Selayar will materialise in June this year so that we can skip the land and ferry transfers altogether.

Notwithstanding, the wall dives in Selayar truly made up for all the travel inconveniences to the island. The East side of Selayar is made up of about 50 kilometers of steep walls that go down from 5 meters to more than 40 metres deep and are lined with pristine coral reefs and huge Gorgonian sea fans that easily rival Sipadan on its better days. The underwater visibility on all our dives there ranged from 25 to more than 35 meters.

We only had opportunities to dive the East side during this trip because from December to March every year, the West side of the island experiences heavy wind which makes all the dive sites on that part of the island inaccessible. From March till May, it is possible to dive all around the island, while from May to October, the wind pattern then shifts and renders the East side inaccessible. We were told that the West side has gentle slopes to about 16 meters deep and excellent opportunities for amazing macro hunts. The East side also has its fair share of critters - I was lucky enough to spot a purple Weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa) on one of the dives.

Berhardt, a German with more than thirty years of diving experience in this part of the world, bought over the Selayar Island Resort (where we stayed) about four years ago and has put quite an effort to transform the resort into a very nice experience to all his guests. All the sea-fronting rooms are beautifully constructed using lots of local materials and the food served at the restaurant are heavenly! In my twelve years of diving, this was the first time I stayed in a dive resort where dinner is served to you, and in proper courses.

Going to the East side dive centre involves a 30-minute roller coaster ride on narrow roads and passing several small villages. There, Berhardt has a large dive boat that can easily accommodate ten divers and can get to the farthest sites in about half an hour. Nitrox is available for certified divers at extra charge.

It was very a successful trip. What's more important is that the trip opened up further opportunities to explore other relatively unknown islands and atolls in South Sulawesi, for example the Takabonerate and Takahaji Atolls in the Flores Sea. We will be back to Makassar in the near future, definitely.

Notable Footnotes of 2008

2009-01-03T13:14:00.009+08:00

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A Collection of Images and Stuffs That Had Made Public in 2008

Several pictures were chosen for an exhibition of underwater images during Reef Check Malaysia's Dinner held in December 2008 at Melia Hotel. The above came from my visit to Pulau Weh in Acheh in March 2008.

The image of a diver with a "Fish Identification" slate above was chosen to be featured in the PADI magazine, the Undersea Journal, fourth quarter issue.

Project AWARE (www.projectaware.org) chose this picture for their November 2008 newsletter. The image is of one of our divers picking up some rubbish during the Underwater Cleanup 2008 event at Tenggol Island, 28 - 30 August 2008. The blog is here.

Related to the same event above, the event report was featured on the International Year of the Reef (IYOR) 2008 website. There weren't too many events related to coral reef conservation featured on the website but ours managed to squeeze through.

This picture of a diver at safety stop with a bag full of rubbish was selected by National Geographic online magazine in February 2008 to be featured on their "Daily Dozen" site.

Almost all of the images chosen by people to be featured on the websites etc. have people in them. People underwater. Shows how much I enjoy capturing images of people in an environment totally alien to them and yet, that of which they were all totally comfortable being in. When the models are comfortable being where they are and doing what they enjoy, they make great models. That is true regardless of whether you are above or underwater.

Lembeh Straits - Nov 2008

2008-12-21T20:56:00.012+08:00

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I was in Lembeh Straits, Sulawesi again last month with a group of divers, most of whom are keen underwater photographers. Two of them completed their PADI Digital Underwater Photographer course with me during the trip.

As always, Lembeh Straits did not disappoint us. I said this in my previous blog on Lembeh and I'm going to say this again: If you're going to Manado for a short diving trip, my advice is to just stay and dive in Lembeh and forget about Bunaken. Unless of course if you have more than a week to spend there, then you may want to take a few days off muck diving and go visit the Bunaken Marine Park.

This time around, I chose to stay at NAD Lembeh (www.nad-lembeh.com) which recently had a change in management. The resort is now operated by Simon Buxton and Mike Veitch, both renowned underwater photographers and videographers. Based on our experience there, I'm happy to say that they have managed to maintain the resort's reputation for good quality of service. I was even more happy to find Rudy, the excellent divemaster who led my dives during last year's visit to Lembeh (I stayed at SDQ that time), is now working for NAD. He is an excellent guide. Period.

NAD offers Nitrox-diving at a cost of USD5 per tank which I consider a tad expensive. I didn't do any dives on Nitrox there as I didn't think they will be of much benefit to me as most of my dives were shallow and the no-decompression time I got from my Suunto was more than what I needed to safely complete the dives.

When it comes to food (a BIG consideration on all our trips, local as well as overseas, I can tell you), I'm sorry to say that I wasn't too pleased to see sweet-and-sour pork served next to the other dishes which were consumable to me. I know this is Indonesia but I still prefer if the resort doesn't serve meat coming from an animal that goes oink, oink. Yucks. That's a big minus point in my book. The other dishes are fine but not what we would consider truly Indonesian or to be specific, Minahasan. So what did we do? Well, for a small sum of money, we asked one of NAD staff to buy us delicious and most importantly, authentic Padang dishes from Bitung, the small fishing town just across the straits. And halal, of course.

NAD has a small camera room with a computer you can use to view your pictures and maybe burn them to CDROM and comes with free internet connectivity. Wifi is available around the resort too.

Lastly, the resort staffs are courteous and helpful, which is usually expected of Indonesia.

Pygmy seahorse Hippocampus pontohi named after Hence Pontoh, a local dive guide who first found this critter in Bunken in 2003.

There's a story that goes with this picture. Our group had to wait fifteen minutes for a chance to view and take pictures of this seahorse, all because of one Mat Salleh (a slang term for a foreigner or white guy) with a Seacam-housed underwater camera with twin strobes and the whole works who thinks that just because his setup is much more expensive that all our underwater camera equipment combined, he has the rights to linger about and took his sweet time to get that oh-so-perfect shots of the H. pontohi. What a jerk. If you're really a pro, then pick a suitable time to visit that site when there are no other groups of divers present so that you can have all the time in the world to compose and execute those picture-perfect shots. If you can't or not willing to pay for that, then please by all means, be courteous to the other divers who also have as much rights to dive the same spot and see and shoot the same critters.

Unfortunately, we met this jerk again at another site then next day. Again, he took his leisure time with a Weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa) while the rest of us had to wait for him. One of our diver then decided to, err, accidentally kick up sand near the area. He was pissed off, haha. He went away but decided to come back to the same spot. By that time, we were all over the scorpionfish.

The pygmy pipefish or sometimes referred to as the "Lembeh dragon". I found some references which identifies it also as the "bony-tailed pipefish". 5mm in length and looked exactly like a strand of tree root. It was a case of "shoot and pray" for me, haha as I have no way of making sure if the shots were in-focus or not due to the very small subject.

The Harlequin shrimp Hymenocera picta was found under some dead corals near "Police Pier" - one of the well-known muck site in Lembeh.

I'm not sure what species of scorpionfish this belongs to. It looks like the normal scorpionfish but the "antennae" above the eyes are similar to those of a Weedy scopionfish Rhinopias frondosa.

Ambon scorpionfish Pteroidichthys amboinensis, found at Pantei Perigi. We found two of them at this site.

Hairy frogfish or striated frogfish (Antennarius striatus) which is another "signature" critter of Lembeh. This one was found at a dive site called TK3. This was my best shot for the trip.

Project AWARE Underwater Cleanup 2008, Tenggol Island

2008-09-21T07:53:00.007+08:00

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In conjunction with Malaysia’s 51st Merdeka Day celebration, the International Cleanup Day (on 16 September) and the Visit Terengganu Year 2008, Ocean Elements Sdn Bhd had once again organized the Project AWARE Underwater Cleanup event from 28 – 30 August 2008. This year, Tenggol Island on the East Cost of Malaysia was chosen as the cleanup location.

25 divers came with us on this event which we managed to get Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM)to cover. RTM’s production crew of six obtained underwater footages of divers removing thrash, discarded nets and fishing lines and recorded several interviews with us on the goals and objectives of the cleanup event and coral reef conservation issues in general.

I can't wait to see how the event is going to come out. I'm especially hoping that I don't look so clumsy in my first ever appearance on TV, haha. Last year's Project AWARE in Perhentian was covered by ASTRO. Unfortunately, they didn't do such a good job. When the event came out in one of their travel documentary, no credit was given to us, to the sponsor, nor to Project AWARE. I don't think there were even any mention of Project AWARE. We hope RTM will do a better job. Let's wait and see.

Thankfully, this year we managed to get sponsorship in various forms from the State Government of Terengganu, Sea Monkey Dive Centre Sdn Bhd (Malaysia’s authorized distributor of Pinnacle wetsuits and equipment), Simon of "Club Scuba" who designed and contributed the event t-shirts and Nestlé Malaysia who gave away their “Powerbar” snacks to fuel up the participants in between the dives.

More than 70 kilograms of rubbish were removed from the house reef in front of the Tenggol Aqua Resort alone, made up mostly of discarded lines and fishing nets and tin cans. Sadly, most of the rubbish came from fishing vessels that frequently moored in the bay front of the resort to take a rest in between their fishing runs.

This year also, for the first time, officials from the Department of Marine Park Malaysia, under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, were at site to monitor the cleanup activities. Ocean Elements took this opportunity to discuss the possibility of having a meeting with them and the Department of Fisheries Malaysia on the issue of rubbish disposal by local fishermen on the coral reefs in Tenggol. We believe that underwater cleanup is only a stop-gap measure which should be followed with the education of local fishermen on the impact of their rubbish on the coral reefs.

The divers who participated in this event also took part in the AWARE – Fish Identification Specialty Diver course. They learn to identify the families of fish common to the Tenggol area and estimate their abundance. A total of 16 PADI Specialty Diver certifications were awarded to participants who completed the course.

Overall, it was another successfully organized event which I believe has met its objectives. More importantly, all the divers completed their dives safely and within the limits and there were no unfortunate incidences.

Now, I'm hoping that we can sit down with the Marine Park and the Fisheries Department people to see how together we can tackle the issue of rubbish dumping in Tenggol by the local fishermen.