Setting up loggers at Semakau (1 Feb 11)

Wow, a sunny day! A small team heads out to set up all kinds of cool data loggers at Pulau Semakau.

With the incessant rain for the last few days, we were braced for a very wet trip. But instead, we enjoyed lovely weather!

Here's Siti leading the team to the shore, everyone carrying big bags of tools, long angle-irons and lots of tape.

The forest trail was not only buzzing with the usual ferocious blood-thirsty mosquitos, but was also a quagmire of slushy slippery mud due to the recent wet weather.

As usual, it's a huge relief to reach the mozzie-free shore! Where Siti outlines, literally on the sand, what we are going to do.

Here's a video clip of Siti explaining what we need to do, complete with sound effects! Although it sounds very complicated, we got it done quite quickly.

After Siti's briefing, we head out to the Sites. The sponges are growing very well on some parts of the shores.

There's lots of tape-laying, step-measuring and stake-pounding.

Then cable-tying of the different kinds of loggers.

Here's a sediment trap with a light logger, all set up!

A look at one of the many sediment traps and the light loggers that were set up.

We lost one of the stakes at Site 2. Then promptly found it again when we were looking at an oyster which turned out to be stuck to the dislodged stake, and is now home to amongst others, a cowrie! More about the marine life we accidentally saw along the way on the wild shores of singapore blog.

We managed to set up all the loggers despite the narrow tide window. And enjoyed a nice sunset too!

Many thanks to all who came to help: Rachel, Andy, Kwang Liak, Azlyna, Thorsten and Eva. And special thanks to the wonderful NEA team who stayed back to give us a ride home! And to Shufen and Wei Ling for organising the transport and logistics for us!