Kuala Lumpur on Friday

Friday morning I leave Koh Tao for getting my next 60 days. Also this time I'm going to Kuala Lumpur, but to another hotel which looks really nice.
http://www.samasamahotels.com/home

I going to enjoy their swimming pool, the fitness center and I think I will go to the beauty salon (I really need to get scrubbed and my skin is in desperate need for a facial :)) and of course their food, which by the looks of it will be pretty amazing.
With a little luck I might even be able to get my hair cut, it is really really in need of that. I'm starting to look like a scarecrow.
I am also going to enjoy things we normally take for granted, like hot water, clean sheets, fast internet and a nice bed and a TV :)

I'll post my review of the things I try out there, and you'll probably gonna get lots of food pictures :)

It's going to be nice just to be by myself for a few days, relaxing.

I'm most of you already know, but the Thai military has taken over power. They got tired of the fights that's been going on in Bangkok for quite some time.
There are no restrictions for tourists or anything, and of course here on Koh Tao everything is peaceful and lovely as always. I didn't even know about the Military siezing power (haven't watched the news for ages) until someone told me about it.

Two sea snakes!!!

Today we had a day off from work and did a fun dive at the Satakutt wreck and Pee Wee Rock. At Pee Wee we saw not only one sea snake but two!!
It was amazing!

Wohooo!! It's Monday!!

Mondays are EMP (Ecological Monitoring Program) day!!

After a relaxing weekend where I spent most of my time in the diveshop doing some touching up on the slates, data entering and also learning a little about how to run the dive shop and hotels, it is finally Monday!
Friday we also had a good bye dinner for Michelle, and she and I + a couple of the guys went for a drink after. She's a lovely lady and I will miss having her around, even though she was only here for a short time.

Today I did fish EMP and also a photo transect in Chalok Bay, after that I entered the data in our database.
Sadly the corals are not looking great, it is a lot of bleaching in them, it is really heartbreaking to see.
After my job was done I swam around and actually managed to take two of my best photos so far, one is of a Bluespotted Ribbontail Ray and the other of a beautful marbled Seacucmber feeding. Maybe my photoskills underwater is improving, guess you'll be the judge of that. :)

I'm looking forward to my trip to Kuala Lumpur this weekend, I'll be staying for 3 nights at Sama Sama hotel. Their reviews are really good and I can't wait to have a hot shower, sleep in crispy sheets, go to the gym and enjoy the absolutely wonderful Malaysian cuisine. For me, Malay food is the best in the world.

Yesterday I also had a call from my mum and dad, it always lifts my spirits talking to them. They are the best parents anyone could ask for, and I look forward seeing them in a few months.

Between June 10 until 23rd I wont do any diving unfortunately. Dev (he's the owner of the dive shop, Kopee cafe and hotel and Ban Talay resort) asked me to help him out. He'll be going to England and asked me to handle everything when he's away. He's giving me a big show of confidence in my ability to handle all the dive planning, hotel planning etc, and I am a bit nervous. I really don't want to let him down. I will do the best I can and hopefully that will be enough, I will now in about 1 month time. The good thing is that I will have a great team if dive instructors, Dive Master and the local staff to help me out.
This job is not something I want to do, I'm doing it to gain a new experience but mostly to help Dev out. Of course I will also do my very best to make things easier for Chad in the conservation by entering data, cleaning up and fixing stuff.
It's good that I get my 3 days in KL before, so I am rested :)
Biggest bummer is that my 100 dive would have been on the 10th but then I will be on land, perhaps I will have to squeeze in an extra dive before that :)
100 dive is a naked dive, hahaha, don't think I will do it naked though, wouldn't want to give the fish a heart attack.

I've been doing my conservation internship for about 3,5 months now and I'm loving it. Every day you learn something new or see something new or just manage to get a good photo. Chad is the heart and soul of the New Heaven Reef Conservation Program, he's not only a brilliant teacher who knows so much about the marine environment around Koh Tao, he is also an amazing teacher and on top of that a great guy. He's also got a fantastic team working for him, Play, Pau and Rahul who are just as keen on teaching you and answering all your questions.
The thing that still bugs me is tying knots :) I've been practicing and practicing but it is something with tying knots and my brain that just don't seem to be compatible, but I will keep on training.

Last night I watched Sherlock Holmes 2 and had a wonderful pizza from Fishies, with half of it left and still loads of movies and the hard drive Dave (DMT in New Heaven) lent to me, tonight will be cold pizza and movie :)

Bluespotted ribbontails ray, my best fish photo so far

Marbles seacucumber feeding. To me it is beautiful!

Monday!!

When the weekend comes I always long for Mondays!

Had a wonderful EMP-Monday today. Before I started my fish survey I saw a seasnake! They are absolutely beautiful, so graceful and amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_sea_krait

I did the fish survey and also the photo transect where you take a photo every meter of the 100 m line. I hope the pictures will work, I'll get feed-back tomorrow.

Now I'm sitting on my balcony enjoying the breeze, it might actually be a storm coming, the wind is picking up!! Really really hope I will finally have my first real tropical storm since I got here.

It is nice and cool this evening, can't be more than 26 degrees.

I just hope the storm will come, it's already getting a bit more calm....

Sitting here on my balcony after an amazing day with New Heaven Reef Conservation Program, I can't think of anything I'd rather do! It's not just the diving it's the planning, logistics etc... I get to use the skills I've gathered during all my years of working and at the same time learn so much more things.

Sea snake

Porquipine fish

Parrot fish

heavy lifting

It's been a wonderful week of diving with surveys, artificial reef maintenance and building two concrete mooring blocks in Chalok.
Concrete is heavy in the water, let me tell you it's even more heavy on land. Yesterday we moved 25 pieces of concrete with an average weight of 70 kg's. After moving them on land we also had to install them in the water (that was the easy part :))
After we had fisnied installing the first longtail boat come and we watched it use one of our newly created moorings, that felt pretty good.
During May loads more of these will be installed around the island, This is a collaboration between the DMCR (Department of Marine and Coastal Resources), longtail captains and us.
The negative from ysterday was that when I packed my gear my regulator was missing from the dive school. After all dive boats were back from the dive we all checked through everything again, but no sign of my reg.
I mentioned that I was going to the police today to file a report for insurance purposes, and two hours after that it mysteriuosly re-appeared.... Don't know who had it or who brought it to the shop.
I'm happy to have my reg back put unfortunately whoever took it has scratched and made a crack and the glass on the pressure gauge, the dust cap wasn't screwed in properly either. Monday I go back diving so then I will see if the crack in the glass is to deep and if there is something else that person has done with my reg.
I'm very disappointed in whoever took it, from now on I will keep my reg and BCD with me, even if that means that I have to carry it back and forth from my home every day.
The good thing is that I also discovered that it is some great people out there. One person here on Koh Tao contacted me when she heard the news and offered to lend me an old reg that was newly serviced for my rest of my stay here. That was so very kind of her.

News flash! I now know who took my reg and will have a word with him about the scratched glass! It was one of the freelance dive instructors who took mine instead of his own, how he can make that mistake I have no idea since me reg is very different and weigh much less than the other private regs here.

Here's some more pictures for you.

Storm over Koh Phangnan and Koh Samui, blue skys over Koh Tao

One of the turtles we saw at Hing Nam pinnacle

A marbled seacucumber feeding, they are so cool

Isn't it beautiful?

A young coral fighting for survival amongst all the algae

A young and an old boring clam

Photos

A boring clam

They come in an amazing variety of colors

Hiding among the anemones

Blue sponge on a massive Diploastrea coral

Crown of Thorns, when they get to abundent they need to be collected

Anemone forest

Beautiful giant clam

an update finally

I’m not very good at keeping this updated, but this time I have the best explanation.

My sister and Sofie arrived to Thailand about two weeks ago and last week my dad and my uncle arrived to. I’ve been spending all my free time with them.
They also brought food and stuff to me. My sister brought beer sausages and a salami and Thor II, Sofie gave me a bottle of Champagne, and my dad brought red wine, Gruyere, Camenbert and Parmesan Reggiano cheese,  pickeled salted cucumbers, crackers and smoked side of pork.
The day they left, I ate cheese, cucumbers and cheese and watched Thor II in the evening.
The salami, red wine and rest of the cheese I will share with a few of my friends here. But the cucumbers and smoked pork is all for me J
It was really great to have them here and show them a little of the beautiful Koh Tao and Chalok.
We also went out snorkeling and saw a Green turtle.
They also got to see an autopsy of a green turtle, and so did I. The turtle was found dead in the water and brought to New Heaven Dive school where Chad and a local veterinarian performed the autopsy and took tissues samples.
It was sad but also very educational seeing how it is done and what they look for. The turtle was a female, healthy (from what we could see), and had a full stomach. We could not find any plastic in her stomach or intestines which was good.
The veterinarian think she died from drowning.
The remains of the turtle were packed in ice and sent to the Royal Navy for DNA-testing (to see where she came from) and further analysis.
This happened in the morning and that same day we went out snorkeling and saw a live turtle, it was amazing.

We’ve been diving a lot also, of course J On several dives I have been helping Angelo who is doing research on Drupella snails. That is very interesting and educational. I learn a lot by helping him and he is very good at explaining things and answer all my questions.
Drupella snails are a predator to corals. In small numbers this is not a problem for corals but when the Drupellas increase to much in numbers they will become a problem.

We’ve also been out collecting Crown of Thorns starfish (COT). The COT’s are the same as the Drupella, they eat corals. In small numbers this is not a problem but when they get to abundant something needs to be done.

Now our corals are even more sensitive to predation. The high water temperatures and strong sunlight makes them stressed which attracts both Drupellas and COT’s.
We still have no rain, no storms and very calm seas. The ocean temperature is already 34 degrees in the shallows and around 31 in the deep, and so far we can’t see any signs of help from the weather to cool things down.
On land both days and nights are really hot (I’m really happy I bought that extra fan for my room). I’m sweating constantly, A LOT J
The corals around Koh Tao is now on a global watchlist due to the rising sea temperatures. Corals do best in waters between 23-31 degrees C, when it gets hotter than that they get stressed and expel their symbiotic partner the zooxanthellae (an algae) and that’s when they bleach and turn white. They can survive in this state for a while but if temperatures doesn’t improve the coral dies.
Koh Tao has already suffered two bleaching events, one in 1998 and one in 2010, both years were years when the El Nino was particularly strong, as is this year.
The strong El Nino years come more often now due to climate change which unfortunately we humans are one to blame.
The work done here on Koh Tao and New Heaven Reef Conservation Program is very important and for me it has been and still is educational and amazing. To see how a few dedicated people can restore and protect an island like this. That is truly inspirational.
I really recommend people coming here and doing if not an internship but a course in marine conservation as a volunteer, I promise it is really rewarding and educational and you will be joining  amazing team leaders Chad, Pau, Ploy and Rahoul.

That’s it for the educational part J

Personally I love being one of the team, to help organize and clean up and fix things. I’m still learning when it comes to conservation but when it comes to organize, clean up and lend a hand at least there I feel I’m actually useful. This work is so different from sitting in front of a computer in an office all day. Of course there are days when I get frustrated being the one cleaning up and stuff but that is partly my fault, for people who knows me they understand that I don’t like to ask people to help. For me it’s a natural thing to help out but I’m still sometimes surprised by how some can just watch someone working without asking if they can help. For me that is the biggest difference between here and TRACC, on Pom Pom and with TRACC everyone always helped out without being asked.
But as I said, it’s my fault too cause I don’t ask for help. Everyone is different.

I’m still pretty much alone, I haven’t found anyone I see as a true friend that I can just hang out with. Of course there are a couple of people here that I respect and like to hang out with but it is different from Pom Pom where I found friends despite of being “not so social” me. I’m not very good at socializing and I know that is one thing I need to work on. On Pom Pom that was not a problem at all but when you are in a place with more people it turns into one in a way.
There are some great people here though, like Franz who understood I was very interested in marine life and shared all these wonderful documents/books with me, and also here I’ve had more positive feed-back on the work I do than I’ve ever had. I really do feel like I’m appreciated here for the work I do when it comes to organization and tidying things up.
I do like being alone but sometimes I miss the strong connection I felt with TRACC on Pom Pom.
But I am loving being here! And I do have a few people who I trust and respect.

I promise to get some pictures uploaded for you soon!

Mother and Terry!! I will see you in just a few months!!

By the look of the view I have now from the dive school it is same nasty weather on Koh Samui and Koh Phangnan, I wonder if that strom has enough power to manage to get through the heat coming off from Koh Tao.
I'd really like a proper tropical storm!

Now I need to book my plane ticket for my next visa-run to activate my next 60 days on my visa.

Hopefully the internet won't go down, it's been a bit shaky lately :)