18-November-2006
Who would spend their vacation cleanning up garbage and repairing broken coral? I would. Having been diving for over 10 years and being a PADI dive instructor for four years and counting, I was naturally very excited to participate and help organize the Mabul-Sipadan Islands excursion in support of the first ever Malaysian Marine Day. The event was a joint effort by Pacific Dome Travel Network, Global Scuba, the Malaysian Youth Movement and Sipadan Water Village Resort. The event, part of the PADI Project AWARE was aimed at encouraging divers and non-divers alike to be more responsible and helps preserve our underwater heritage.
I went there with my wife, Stepheni and a small group of friends. It was an event, which I found to be more of a treat than serious conservation work, which it really was! Almost a hundred divers where there, most of them come from all over Malaysia.
We attended a briefing the night before the first day’s work, where we were introduced to the proceedings of the two-day event. The mood was sweltering with excitement and everyone was looking forward for the first day’s highlight activity: Coral Transplants!
Everyday, hundreds of corals become loose break, tear or chipped off due to strong waves and water currents, and get washed by the sea. The dive instructors at Mabul-Sipadan have collected all these drifting pieces of corals in buckets of seawater and brought them to be transplanted at this event. There were about five types of coral species altogether.
The tag line for the day was ‘Adopt-A-Coral.’ We were all given a coral to tag as our own, and using an environmentally friendly adhesive, we ‘planted’ the coral onto a designated patch of rock.
The transplant area was specially chosen for the event’s purposes. Extensive research has been done in order to determine that transplanted coral would be able to grow well at the area. The water was not too deep and the area was located near the resort. All these were important for monitoring purposes.
The second day of the event saw a massive clean-up project; a task that saw us going into the water with a garbage bag each and picking up litter. You would not believe the things that people throw down there. I gathered a great number of sardine cans, plastic bottles and broken fishing nets. Among the most outrageous things we found were baby diapers (which are not biodegradable!) and a big oil drum.
I extended my trip for three more days after the Marine Day event and my friends and I had a wonderful time on the islands of Mabul and Sipadan. There is something about the place which just makes for a satisfyingly relaxing stay – good accommodations, good food, good company and good diving – it is as though time just stood still and everything was, for a divine moment in time, perfect.
We engaged in about three dives a day, and even though it may seem as if we have dived at the very same spot before, I saw different things every time. Marine life environment are ever changing, obstinately fragile and sensitive to changes in time, water currents and things like that.
I joined a sunset dive, which was an exceptional treat. At the transitional gap of about 40 minutes just before the sun sets completely, I got to watch the rare mating rituals of the mandarin fish. At the exact moment, as if triggered by some temporal currents, the mandarin fish would come out and engage in a dance routine involving about twenty female fish and a single male (lucky fellow). It was certainly a dance I would not forget!
Night diving presents its own excitement with sightings of nocturnal marine life such as crabs and eels. We also saw the unique sleeping habits of certain fish such as the parrotfish, which spins a sort of cocoon around itself from its saliva. The purpose of this cocoon is to protect itself from that predators as it sleeps.
My extended trip to Mabul-Sipadan for the Malaysian Marine Day event was memorable and educational. Something I would be pround to call myself a champion for.
Source/See more : http://www.virtualmalaysia.com/community/travel_experience/
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