Kuala Lumpur

It was a long wait on Koh Samui before my flight left to KL yesterday. Next trip I'll plan a bit better.
KL is hot, 38 degrees and the air is really dry.
Today my time has been spent in the gym and by the pool.
The hotel KLIA Concorde Inn is alright, not as good as I thought but alright. The internet connection however is super slow, I thought Koh Tao was slow but I think the internet here is a record slow. Had plan to upload all the latest pictures on facebook but no luck with that.

Looking forward going back to Koh Tao again tomorrow morning. It was nice getting off the island but as soon as I did I wanted to go back.

oops

I've been having such a great time lately that I have totally forgot about updating.

Last week we had 5 girls from a school in Singapore visiting. We built metal structrus and bottle nurseries and put them down in Shark Bay. They were put down in our monitoring transect so that we can see how the corals make it on them compared to the other half of the transect which has been left as it is.

With the first weekend off for some time I started Saturday with a lzy beach day, in the evening we had a night out with the girls as a good bye party. Since it was the full moon party at Koh Panang, the bars in Chalok was really quiet. It was really nice when there were less people at the bars, me Frankie and Meika didn't get back home until efter 4 in the morning :)

Sunday was another lazy day, all three of us was a bit tired after our late Saturday.

Monday we mapped the Acropora corals in Chalok Bay to see where to do our monitoring during the evenings to watch for their spawning. I, however, got one of my favorite chores, cleaning. I was kneeling on the bottom scrubbing small cement "mushrooms" which has been in the ocean for about a year. They are put there so that crustae Coraline algae should set on them, CCA is a chemical marker for the coral larvae when they decide where to settle. 

Corals spawn once a year a few days after full moon in the evening after sunset. We are waiting for them to spawn to collect eggs and sperm, fertilize them and put in our tanks to rear them up and eventually put them in a coral nursery. After a couple of years when they've grown bigger and stronger they will be planted to one of our artificial reefs. It's like a live stock of corals.

Tuesday, Wednesday and today we have started work later in the afternoon and from 18 we've been on the boat. Teams of two divers take turn in 20 minute shifts to monitor the Acropora in a specific area. First shift goes in about 19.00 and the last team comes up about 22.

So far no spawning but maybe tonight is the night.

After we got back yesterday we went out to a party, it was a real late night, got home about 4.30, luckily I only had a few drinks :)

Still no rain unfortunately, really hope it will come soon.

Monday

Yesterday was a nice day. First we did EMP at Twins in the morning. In the evening me and a couple of others had red wine, cheese and sausage. Chilling out and just enjoying the company of eachother.
My mum and dad called, that always makes me happy. It is so nice to hear from them, knowing that they are doing good.

This morning I learned that I can adjust the white balance on my camera manually, so now hopefully the pictures I take underwater will turn out a bit better.
I still need a photo program for the final adjustments but the photos I take will need much less manual correction.

I'll post some of the pictures I took yesterday as soon as I have adjusted the colors so that the photos look as they should look.

Today we're doing giant clam data and collection data from one of the artificial reef structures in Chalok Bay.
After our dive today I'll be helping the students from Singapore who are building new structures. Gonna be a busy week.
Beginning of April Thailand Tourist Authority is coming for a visit together with representatives from other countries. Before they arrive we have to build even more artificial reef structures which will be deployed on their visit.
Gonna be a couple of hectic weeks ahead. I look foward for a little break when I go to Kuala Lumpur for two nights March 24.

Tonight it's farewell dinner for Australian Alex, she's such a wonderful and sweat person. I think everyone on the team are going to miss her a lot.

Back in the water!!!

Wednesday I was finally back in the water. Still has a cough but it's getting better every day.

Wednesdays dive we moved concrete blocks. On this dive I first tried to help get the big yellow lift bag down, we finally got it down and then has to try and find where the others in the team were. The current made us drift far away from where we were supposed to be so after a while of fighting with the yellow bag we had to abort and go up with it.
When we surfaced I felt a bit sick but took it for sea sickness since it was pretty wavy. I went down again to see if there was anything I could do to help with the blocks.
When I got back up again and was standing on the ladder to the boat I got really dizzy but managed to get on the boat, when on board I had to lie down for a while cause I almost fainted. I was not allowed to go on the second dive with the team.
Lesson learned: Don't over do it after you've been ill.

Thursday was block-moving-day again. This time I took the easy chores and did both dives. Was tired afterwards but nothing worse than that.

Friday and Saturday I've taken the EMP data for invertabrates on the shallow line.

Friday we did the EMP at Shark Island were we have set transects.
Today we set up three new transects in Shark Bay at 3 m, 5 m and 6 m. We collected base data for future surveys along these transects.
This area will also be used for research. Each line is 100 m, half of each area will be used for new coral nurserys, the other half will be left as it is for comparison.

I finally brought my camera with housing and managed to get a couple of ok pictures. I'm going to bring my camera as often as I can so I hopefully will improve.

Still no diving

Over a week since I went diving last, so today I relented and went to the pharmacy.... I got Acetylcystein to help me get rid of the mucous in my chest, so annoying. A part from the slimy cough I feel fine, but I can't dive grrr.
Hopefully I can give it a try tomorrow!!

Koh Tao school fundraising

Saturday was the fundraising for the Koh Tao school. We helped out by selling cotton candy, what a success that was!! There was always a long line in front of our stall with both kids and adults, locals and tourists.
I also walked around with a local kid and sold raffle tickets to tourists.
There was also restaurants selling different kinds of foods, from ice-cream, desserts to curries and barbacue. For everything sold the money goes to the Koh Tao school.

A couple of us started working around 14 to set up everything at the school, and I was then there until about 22.

It was a lot of fun, and I really hope we all managed to raise enough money for the school to continue it's wonderful work.

Today I'm just gonna relax and enjoy the weather, and hope that my cough gets better for tomorrow so I can go diving with the team again.

Still no sign of rain, and they're warning for severe water shortage. Now is really the time to think about water consumption. I'm gonna buy a big bucket so I can take bucket showers instead of normal ones, this saves a lot of water. And also if the water gets a bit discolored, I can filter it and fill the bucket.
I really would love at least a full day with rain, it is just to dry.