Diving at Enclosure Bay

Finally, the weather is good enough for us to explore the underwater scene of Enclosure Bay, Waiheke. The bay is shallow about - 3 meters, and enclosed. Thus, the condition in the bay is great! There were kelps everywhere, and lots of life - triple fins fishes (however, did not manage to get any pic of them...needs a macro lens), starfish, cushion urchin, crabs, sea cucumber etc. Rumors from the locals is that there are seahorses in the bay too, but we did not manage to see any. Outside the bay, there is another small "island" which is approximately 12 meters deep. We did not venture out of the bay today because we did not have a buoy, and there are boats around. We managed to take a few photos with my crappy camera, and after spending an hour poking around the cervices, we called the dive because we were cold. We will be back soon to explore the deeper reefs. :) There is nothing better than just to kit up, drive 5 mins, and drop into the water. Be back home after the dive, and have a beer on the deck while waiting for the pork chop cooking in the oven :D

Vis : Good 3 - 4m
Temperature : Cold 15 deg C

My new website

After couple of months of on-off work, my new personal research website is ready! It is going to concentrate more on research and science. I am still going to keep this blog going for more personal, daily stuffs. There is a blog on this website as well, but it is going to be more on research stuffs. I am sure there will be some cross-over here and there. Go visit and tell me what you think? Opinions and advises welcome. I may have overlook a few critical things, and would appreciate if you want to point them out to me before I launch it full throttle onto the www!

http://www.tuanmlee.com/

Oh life....

Good read ...

The Audacity of Graduate School

Orchids are blooming

After 2 years of caring for the orchids, they are finally blooming. Since I got the orchids two years ago, I have been carefully adding nutrients to help them grow, separating the buds, bringing them out in the sun, bringing them in the house to "escape" the cold winter etc.... Finally, this spring see the blooming of the two orchid plants. I don't remember their species names, but one of the them have huge, yellowish-green color flowers. The other I can only see the buds, so still waiting :)

Oh, the grapevine has started fruiting as well.

Waiheke diving?

Waiheke is well-known for its vineyard, as well as long sandy beaches. After asking around, we decided there may be a possibility for shore diving here on the island too. We have the equipment, and there is water all around, why is there no diving? We are not looking for super deep 40m dives, just looking to get wet, and keep our skills up-to-date.

Today, we drove around the island and look for potential sites. One of the most promising location is called Enclosure Bay. Above water, it looks great! We are able to drive up to the beach, there is a table for gearing up, and it is not crowded...We will come back here again with our snorkelling gear some other day when the weather is better to take a closer look at the underwater conditions.

Enclosure Bay

There is hope :)...and Hannah is happy to find a swing rope at the location as well.

Hannah on the swing

What is happening to the coral reefs?

Mom send me an email yesterday with this link
why-the-great-barrier-reef-could-lose-almost-all-its-coral-in-the-next-decade

In short, Great Barrier Reef has lost almost 50% of its reef in the last 27 years, and it is declining at a faster rate than ever. In the next decade, the coral cover in GBR could be less than 5% if this trend continues.

Another news that is capturing the attention of coral scientists around the world is that coral reefs in Hawaii has just been affected by a mysterious disease, and the disease is spreading at an alarming rate that no one has seen before. Even worse, it is affecting fishes and turtles that feeds on the corals. Thus, the bacteria are spreading from corals to fishes/ turtles, and it may in turn spread to other coral reefs around the region.
Coral-Disease-Outbreak-Spreading-At-Alarming-Rate

Mom asked whether this is a good time to be studying the corals :P... well two things may happen -
1) Everyone is freaking out, and putting in more money for research, and hopefully, I hope to get some of it as well.
2) Everyone is freaking out, and decided to give up! No more money for coral reefs!

I certainly hope it is option #1...

I have this crazy idea which I shared with Hannah sometime ago. I think one day, we will preserve coral reefs like how we do with animals in the zoo.... I call it "Coral Zoo". We will corner off some parts of the reefs, a smaller part which we can easily monitor and manage. We will use all our science knowledge to keep the corals within this area nice and pristine. And we will just have to "give up" the other parts of the reef and let "nature" or human takes its toll on it! We will limit the number of visitors to these nice reefs, and charge them for it...

What do you think? Will this be a reality?