Pulau Semakau (28 February 2014)

2014 marks TeamSeagrass's 8th year in monitoring! Woo hoo! Our very first monitoring trip brings us to Pulau Semakau. It is also unfortunately our last trip to Pulau Semakau for the next year or so, as NEA is starting works on the construction of Phase 2's cells to accommodate future waste disposal.

Nevertheless, we managed to gather a team of 20 volunteers - firstly a BIG THANK YOU for coming to join us, especially since it is a weekday. With the recent hot dry spells, we urged our volunteers to protect themselves and hydrate! We also conducted our usual briefing in the NEA building prior to departure onto the seashore...
   

Captain Siti briefing everyone

Of mud and seed banks: Adventures with Seagrass-Watch, 2nd - 3rd Feb 2014.

So this is a totally belated post btw, I was supposed to do it, but all the thesis writing made it very difficult to face a computer and type stuff, so I put it off for as long as I could until it just got ridiculous, so here goes.

Len and Rudi from Seagass-Watch HQ visited us over the CNY weekend and OF COURSE we had to go seagrass adventuring. The aim of the trip was to collect some samples for nutrient analyses, genetic studies and to do a preliminary seed bank study.

Fortunately, the tides are evening tides, which means that we could sleep in after the CNY feasting and festivities before heading out to Chek Jawa on Sunday, 2nd Feb. Once we were there, Sam, Nor Aishah and I set out collecting samples for genetic analyses. There were some curious members of the public out and about and we had to tell them what we were doing. Good thing we have that research permit!

After that, Rudi showed us how to do seed bank sampling. It's a relatively simple method, using very simple tools, namely a PVC pipe and a kitchen sieve. The idea is to get about 10cm of sediment in the corer and sieve out the sediments and look for seeds. Here's Sam showing us how it's done:

Using the Corer (PVC pipe with cap) to sample ~10cm o sediment.

Pulau Semakau (3 November 2013)

What better way to celebrate Deepavali than to do our last monitoring of Pulau Semakau for 2013! It looked like a promising day, with most of the afternoon showers cleared by the time we met up at Marina South Pier. Unfortunately, we had to soldier on without three of our TeamSeagrass troopers – Siti, Rachel and Nor Aisha – who were all down with food poisoning from a very suspect ban mian stall.

TeamSeagrass preparing to leave for yet another public holiday survey

New email for submission of TeamSeagrass Quadrat Photos

This is a reminder, for those of you who haven't been submitting quadrat photos and for those of you who haven't heard. We have a new address to which you should send all future Quadrat Photos from your monitoring.

This address is teamseagrass.quadratphotos [at] gmail.com

Please put the Monitoring Site and Date (day/month/year) in your subject heading, so it's easier for us to file.

As usual, the correct method of labeling your quadrat photo is: 

[Site Code][Site No.][Transect No.]_[Meter Mark]_[Date:dd/mm/yy]

So for example, the 25m mark at Pulau Semakau, Site 2, Transect 3 on 24th
Nov 2007 is labeled like so:

PS2T3_25m_241107.jpg

As far as possible, try to keep file sizes to around 2MB max at a resolution of between 200-300dpi so we can zoom in to look at the grasses when needed. You can keep the photo uncropped so we can zoom in to check the meter mark on the transect tape if need be.

This is also a timely reminder to SUBMIT your photos if you haven't already. We are accepting backlog photos from since the beginning of TeamSeagrass monitoring as long as you label with the the monitoring date. All late submissions welcome and culprits will be forgiven(ish). :) 

Chek Jawa (21 September 2013)

TeamSeagrass was out and about at Chek Jawa for the first of our evening tides this year! It's been awhile since I blogged for any of our trips, so bear with me if this isn't the usual style of reporting.

The afternoon started off well enough, we got everyone to CJ in time for the outgoing low tide. We distributed the equipment and people into various groups and then realised that I had forgotten the pencils. Spectacular start to the day indeed. Fortunately for me, seagrassers are prepared a resourceful people, so out came the pens and pencils out of nooks and crevices hitherto long-forgotten. 

Cyrene Reef (10 August 2013)

TeamSeagrass celebrates another National Day on Cyrene Reef!

TeamSeagrass <3 Singapore!

And what a lovely, sunny day it was!