Halimi's Surface Intervals

Anatomy of My Typical Underwater Image

2013-05-11T01:00:00.000+08:00

Here's a brief run-through of my typical thought processes as I am composing and taking an image underwater. It's not always the case but in many of my images, these are some of the few things I consider before I take that shot. As much as possible I try to avoid the "spray and pray" shooting technique as I think it's much too wasteful and honestly, I'm just too lazy to go through hundreds of images later and find out that 90% of them are useless to me.

Underwater Panorama - Tenggol Island, Malaysia

2013-04-23T14:07:00.001+08:00

Here's one of my earliest attempt in shooting a reef scene in panorama mode, using the impressive built-in panorama shooting mode of my SONY NEX-7 Interchangeable Lens camera. The scene above is of the fringing reefs off Turtle Point in Tenggol Island, Terengganu, Malaysia.

Shooting details: F/2.8, 1/500, ISO160 (Exposure parameters set automatically by the built-in "Panorama" shooting mode of the NEX-7). Manual white balance.

The built-in stitching program is not perfect. Upon close inspection, you can see some "colour band" on the table corals in the foreground, due to uneven exposure. Nevertheless, for a quick, one shot, fully automatic panorama image stitching, the result is still impressive.

Sunset in Lang Tengah Island

2013-04-22T01:03:00.001+08:00

Sunset in Lang Tengah island, Terengganu, Malaysia, captured using my ageing iPhone 3Gs. The iPhone camera continues to amaze me with this kind of image capture. Amazing.

#iphoneography

Instructor Development Course (IDC) in Koh Lanta, Krabi

2013-04-15T13:14:00.001+08:00

I just finished assisting PADI Platinum Course Director Azman Sulaiman in his Instructor Development Course (IDC) in Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand. We had six candidates, two of whom completed their PADI Divemaster training with me. The course was held at Anti Gravity Divers located at Amantra Resort on Klong Nin beach in Koh Lanta Yai.

The IDC started almost two-and-a-half weeks ago with a 4-day "prep" course followed by eleven days of the actual instructor course. At the end of the IDC, the instructor candidates went through two days of the PADI Instructor Examination (IE) conducted by Rob Scammel from PADI Asia Pacific. During the IE, candidates demonstated their knowledge in Dive Theories and PADI System, Standards and Procedures and their skills in teaching Knowledge Development, Confined Water and Open Water segments as well as skills demonstration and diving rescue.

I'm happy to say, all six candidates passed the IE. Now I have two new Open Water Scuba Instructors to help me teach courses in Kuala Lumpur.

In the photo above are IDC staff instructors Dalton Hopper and Anand Chandra Sekaran from Anti Gravity Divers Koh Lanta, Platinum Course Director Azman Sulaiman and yours truly.

Below are the new PADI OWSI: Aiman Zanani (Malaysia), Scott Fraser (New Zealand), Pablo Dutto (Spain), Hafiz Rahman (Malaysia), Petra Jakoby (Slovakia) and Mohan Kutty (India).

Classroom session

Emergency First Response (EFR) Instructor training

Confined Water session

Confined Water teaching

Rescue Demonstration

Briefing by PADI Course Director for Open Water Teaching session

Koh Haa - location for the Open Water Teaching session

New PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors (OWSI) with IDC Staffs

GoPro's Baby Dubstep Video 2013

2013-02-05T13:00:00.002+08:00

I have produced GoPro (gopro.com) videos before, usually for our underwater encounters. I thought I have made the coolest videos on the planet. I was dead wrong. Totally. This 30 seconds advertisement made by Kyle Camerer (@KyleCamerer) for GoPro and was shown during NFL Super Bowl XLVII blew all other GoPro videos out of the water. Check it out:

By the way, in case you're STILL interested to view my underwater videos, they're here at http://vimeo.com/halimi.

My Best Image of 2012

2013-01-25T12:45:00.000+08:00

Manta ray, Nusa Penida, Bali - September 2012.

Sony NEX-7 with 16mm pancake lens + Fisheye converter. Nauticam underwater casing. Inon Z-240 strobes.

Two things that came together for this shot: Right location, right time.

If you want to shoot Manta, go to places where Mantas are aplenty - Nusa Penida, Raja Ampat, Maldives etc. Morning or afternoon is best. I prefer mornings since in a lot of locations, visibility is usually better early in the day. 1/125 speed at least to freeze motion. F/13 or smaller aperture for depth of field.

Visit Malaysia Year 2014

2013-01-24T00:49:00.001+08:00

Here's one of my underwater photos from the Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) Marine Park, featured on a recently-published Tourism Malaysia brochure.

Reflections on 2012: Tourism Malaysia Underwater Photography Assignment

2013-01-24T00:42:00.001+08:00

My biggest achievement in 2012, without a doubt, was the underwater photography assignment I received from Tourism Malaysia (www.tourism.gov.my) to cover 11 islands in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. The underwater images are for use by Tourism Malaysia in their "Visit Malaysia Year 2014" marketing campaign, which is currently underway.

Together with two other photographers, including my good friend Ariff Budiman (www.ariffbudiman.com), we started the assignment at Pulau Payar near Langkawi and finished off at the Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) Marine Park in Sabah. There were lots of experiences gained and some that I wished to forget altogether (will require several teh tarik sessions to cover these alone) but in the end, the job was delivered as per requirement.

In retrospect, some of the shooting sessions could have been organized better which could have led to much better photos. I guess we'll leave that for the next big assignment :)

A selection of photos from the assignment is presented below. The copyright of images from this assignment belongs wholly to Tourism Malaysia so what I did was to obtain the following images that I have authored during the assignment and which are now publicly displayed on the Tourism Malaysia Image Gallery here:

http://imagegallery.tourism.gov.my/fotoweb/default.fwx?archiveId=5001#/ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS

Coral Reef Conservation Seminar at Sekolah Menengah (Secondary School) Paka, Dungun

2012-04-29T23:10:00.001+08:00

Ocean Elements organized a coral reef conservation seminars on 13 April 2012 for 50 students of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (National Secondary School) Paka, Dungun, Malaysia. 50 staffs from the local branches of Bank Islam also joined in the seminar held at the school. As usual, yours truly was given the opportunity to conduct this Project AWARE (www.projectaware.org) seminar.

At the end of the seminar, the students were awarded Project AWARE certificates while the school received a collection of books and reference materials on the ocean, marine conservation and marine animals, courtesy of the event sponsor, Bank Islam.

We would like to thank the Dungun District Education Office (Pejabat Pendidikan Daerah) and SM Paka Secondary School for providing the coordination and logistics assistance necessary for Ocean Elements to organise this seminar.

Project AWARE Beach Cleanup, Dungun, Malaysia - 13 April 2012

2012-04-29T22:58:00.000+08:00

This event marked the second year Ocean Elements Sdn Bhd - PADI Dive Centre had organised a beach cleanup event in Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia. We would like to thank Majlis Perbandaran Dungun (Dungun City Council) for their support and assistance which made this year’s event another success. This year’s event is wholly sponsored by Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (Bank Islam) as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

This year’s cleanup event span the entire 10km length of Dungun beach, starting from Teluk Gadung, all the way to Tanah Lot. More than 100 staffs of Bank Islam from their Headquarter in Kuala Lumpur and the local branches took part in the cleanup, together with about 350 Dungun residents from several nearby schools, Politeknik Dungun, Universiti Teknologi MARA and government agencies including the police, fire department and the Civil Defense department, volunteering hand-in- hand with the Dungun City Council cleaning contractors.

At the end of the 3-hour program, 875kg of thrash comprising mostly of plastic materials and glass bottles collected from the beach were weighted and sorted for Project AWARE statistics. 20 volunteers then spent nearly one hour just to sort and weigh all the rubbish collected.

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