And Indonesia is a country full of such events !!

At the end of May we (Frank and Veran) left packed and sacked from our beloved Koh Tao to another island, an island called Bangka. It is located in Indonesia, just north of North Sulawesi. A small island, full of jungle, with 1500 inhabitants in three small villages, where most of the transport goes over water because there are no roads (and therefore no cars)! It is also surrounded by beautiful reefs and rock formations under water.

We have been on the island previously to orient ourselves, to talk to the owner of one of the resorts who was interested in repairing (parts of) the reef in front of ‘his’ door, to get a feel for the size of the damage caused by dynamite fishing, and what we could do for possible recovery, and of course, education.

What we found gave us energy and inspiration! A very nice project for CoralGardening to deal with, in part because it was possible to train local people in the field of coral conservation and repair, and partly because of the opportunities we saw further in Indonesia in the area of sustainability.

After extensive consultations about the visa possibilities and several visits to the Indonesian embassy in Singapore, we were ready – 6 months as a volunteers in Indonesia. We would have to extend the visa a few times on the spot, but that was all well-arranged in accordance with the guidelines of the Indonesian government.

After arriving at Bangka we immediately hit the jackpot! A big fundraiser with a nationally “world-famous artist,” a dinner with the mayor of one of the major cities in North Sulawesi, and a clean-up dive in which the artist also took part enthusiastically. Wonderful unexpected Indonesia !!

Then we commenced with the project – building, diving, researching, drawing, designing, preparing, giving information, and sharing knowledge with divers, etc etc. That there were a great many mosquitoes and the internet reception was not very good, but we were doing beautiful things !!

So you can imagine our great disappointment when we were told in July that our visa would expire at the end of that month. Further extension was not possible despite the information we had previously received.

Indonesia – land full of unexpected events 

We did everything we could to try to make sure we could not stay longer, but – just like in Thailand – the Indonesian government tightened the rules for the deployment of volunteers and was adamant. There was no alternative but to pack our things. The structure, in the shape of a Dugon, that we have built, was handed over to the people of the resort, so they can deploy it during Coral Day. With pain in our hearts we say goodbye to Bangka and Indonesia.

We are now back in the Netherlands and, after a sad period due to the death of Frank’s mother, a few visits to a doctor due to a persistent arm injury, and several catch-up moments with friends and family, we are in for a few weeks of rest. During which we going to look where our next project might be and which partnerships we could possibly enter into.

If you have ideas or connections that may be of interest to us, please let us know !!

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In May 2016 we took a giant leap, we gave up our house, and moved to Thailand. To start a new project is not easy. Things may go differently than expected, things might go wrong. Other things take much longer than you anticipated. On the other hand, you get help from unexpected sources and the most wonderful people!

Thanks to many donations, sponsors, and volunteers we built an artificial reef on Koh Tao! Here is an overview of what we accomplished together.

The CoralGarden is built in Hin Wong Bay south, the GPS location is: 10°06’04″N – 99°50’59″E

The artificial reef structures of the CoralGarden are deployed on an empty patch of sand in Hin Wong Bay. There was not much marine life in this area, though there are healthy coral reefs nearby.

It total we created ten flowers, one pair of hands, and one tree. We gave each of the flowers a name based on the top portion of the flower. Between the flowers and the natural reef, we deployed bottle nurseries, to create a path for fish to migrate to the new habitat. The flowers and tree are designed for marine life and as structures to accommodate the transplantation of corals. The hands are made for divers, to practice their buoyancy control. Here the map of the CoralGarden:

We have learned a lot during the building of the CoralGarden. In 2015 we deployed a test flower in Hin Fai, which was connected to the Biorock structure of NHRCP, to test new ideas about how to use new materials. This flower is doing great, but the conditions in Hin Wong Bay are completely different. So a couple of flowers were having a difficult time. We had to alter our design to deal with the rough weather conditions and different bacteria in the soil.
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Here a good video about dynamite fishing from National Geographic:

Bangka island is really small and remote, there are no cars, no ATM’s and no 7-eleven’s. We are staying at Mimpi Indah Resort, build between the forest and the ocean. The place to work behind the computer is a little bit different from ours on Koh Tao. On Koh Tao there is high speed internet every where. Here is slow and depending on the weather. We will be less online for instance on social media and email.

This is the new workspace at Bangka Island. The one we used last year is in use for the purpose it was designed for. Samati, the man with the golden hands, is rebuilding one of the Mimpi Indah boats. The first materials for the restoration of the reef are delivered. We have started to create the dugong structure.

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With dozens of promoters of, state of the art diving gear, underwater photography, mermaid swimming lessons, ocean artists, providers of live-a-boards and much more, it was the place to be for anyone interested in diving or being professionally involved. So for CoralGardening it was the perfect opportunity to catch up with our committed partners, colleagues and of course (potential) volunteers. With our decorated kidscorner, we educated the youngest generation about the beauty of our oceans, it’s beautiful coral reefs and numerous species of fish. Because the sad fact is that if people continue to exploit the ocean in this way, their children will probably see more plastic than fish in the ocean.

It is good to see that there are more and more people who understand the importance of healthy oceans and that this theme is also more topical in Asia than ever.

Next to coloring the ocean and admiring how amazing marine life can be and deciding which (single-use) items don’t belong in the ocean we also played several games, kids could design their own new reef and make their own reusable bags. Thanks to mainly Singaporean based volunteers the presence of CoralGardening on ADEX was a huge success!

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In the marine conservation world there are discussions going on about what the best ways are to regrow coral reefs. There are different methods and different conservation projects use them with various results. We aim to use the methods that have best long-term and sustainable results.

Coral reproduces itself in two ways:

• Sexual reproduction
• A-sexual reproduction

Both ways occur in nature or can be manipulated by humans.

Sexual reproduction is the natural process of spawning and coral larval settlement on (newly created) substrate. We humans can intervene with this and can collect during spawning the sperm and eggs and bring them to a laboratory. There coral larval can settle on an artificial substrate. After reaching a certain size the coral is transplanted (with the artificial substrate) to a nursery or straight on the reef in the ocean. Every sexual reproduced coral has new DNA.

If a larvae is settled to a substrate (in nature or in laboratory) it starts growing its first coral polyp. This polyp reproduces itself a-sexual, it clones itself and thus the polyp grows into a colony. One colony consists of many polyps which have the exact same DNA. It typically takes corals 25 to 75 years to reach sexual maturity. When it is sexual mature it releases gametes with sperm and eggs during spawning. The sperm and eggs from the same colony can’t fertilize to form a larvae, because they are from the same mother colony. They need to find egg or sperm from a different coral species.

There are two methods to use a-sexual reproduction as a method to regrow coral reefs.

1) The first method is fragmenting a mother coral colony. This involves breaking a healthy coral colony in many small fragments and connect these fragments on an (artificial) substrate. The fragments will grow on this substrate and start to reproduce themselves a-sexually, With this method you can convert one coral colony into hundreds or even more new colonies. This method generates new colonies in a quick way, because the colonies don’t start from one single polyp, but from a small colony. Most of the time branching coral types, which are fast growing, are clipped to smaller pieces. The downside from this method is, that the growth spurt declines after some time and returns to normal growth rates. More importantly this method creates mono culture. Every new colony has the same DNA as the mother colony, so they can’t reproduce themselves with these new colonies. Also they are vulnerable to the same diseases. This method is mainly used for growing corals for aquariums.

2) The second method is to go around a natural coral reef and look for broken-off pieces of coral. These pieces of corals are broken off by storms, marine life or human disturbance. The pieces (of a certain size) are collected only if they appear alive and healthy, without signs of disease, and if they are not yet overgrown by algal turf or sponges. These corals of hope are connected to the artificial reef and start reproducing themselves asexually. The result is only a few corals from the same colony are attached to form a new reef, one creates more biodiversity by collecting different species. Different growth forms of corals, like plate, foliose, encrusting or even brain coral, if you find one that is broken, can be placed on different locations on the artificial reef. The downside of this method is that it is more time consuming to find the coral pieces, instead of breaking one coral colony into many pieces. Also it takes more time for the slow growing species to form an abundant reef.

CoralGardening only uses the method of collecting broken-off pieces and connect them to artificial reef structures. When we find natural recruits on our structure we are extremely happy. If you want to now more in depth about these methods, just download this document.

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We will host activities in the Kids Zone and advice parents, consumers and business on preventing more plastic soup ending up in our ocean which harm our beautiful coral reefs.

You can find CoralGardening at booth KZ02, between the stage with photo and video zone and the swimming pool.

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Since building artificial reefs is our main objective, we don’t want to spend too much time to process the footage afterwards into a beautiful video. That’s how we ended up at Paralenz. This action camera was designed by and for divers. The most unique selling point of this camera is that it adjusts the colour balance to the depth that you dive. For the less experienced divers, a small explanation: Water absorbs sunlight, so visible colours disappear as you go deeper. The first colour that disappears is red, that’s why everything in the water seems to become more blue. Photographers solve this by using flash light or by manually adjusting their camera to the depth where they are at that moment. That is how you get all the colour in the picture. You can also edit the photos on the computer afterwards, in a photo editing program or special designed programs such as Picture-Fix.

Adjusting the colours of video recordings is a lot more complicated. Paralenz has solved that challenge very cleverly. They have an automatic colour correction built into their action camera. The camera measures how deep you are under water and adjusts the footage accordingly. You don’t have to do a colour correction afterwards to create a nice video. This saves you a lot of time when making a video with the raw footage. More about this later.

The operation of the camera is different from the other action cameras. The video or photo mode is selected using the selection ring. Starting the recording or taking the photo is done by the button on the top of the camera. You have to get used to it, but after a while you have a good feel on how it works and it is very handy. The design of the camera is also very cleverly done. It is made in the shape of a torch and you also hold it that way. A lot easier than the average square action cameras. You can also hold it a lot more stable this way.

Something most divers will probably not do, but what is ideal for our work, is the ability to put the camera in your sleeve of your rash guard / wetsuit. I leave the wristband on my wrist, turn the camera around, put it in my sleeve, so that I have both my hands free again. I do what I have to do and as soon as I’m done, camera comes out of the sleeve and I film the work I did.

The only disadvantages of action cameras is of course that you don’t see what you are filming and these types of cameras are intended to make overview footage. You get to see a lot in the picture. That is also the case with the Paralenz. This is of course great if you want to film that whale shark that comes along. Only we are usually focused on small pieces of coral or coral fish. And there the Paralenz surprised me positively! It surprised me how close you can get to your subject and that you still have very nice footage.

And then of course the most important question: “How are the video images you make with the camera? Are they indeed as beautiful as the advertising films show?” I can only say: “Yes!” As a non-professional videographer I have incredibly beautiful footage. The disadvantage is that I now have too many video and photo recordings, which takes more time to select what can be used for the video. ”;-)

I am not an experienced product reviewer, but most reviews always ask the question: “Do you recommend this product?” I say: “Yes!” The footage are incredible and the organization behind Paralenz is also extremely helpful. If you have questions, they will answer you very quickly. Several divers who saw my footage have put Paralenz on their shortlist for a new camera.

Have fun diving and filming.


Subscibe to our YouTube channel to see out latest video’s.

The post Paralenz in action appeared first on CoralGardening.

During our tour, Max took all the time we desired in order to answer our many questions, such as: can CoralGardening receive coral from Burgers’ Ocean?

Unfortunately, as it turns out, placing coral back into the wild is not possible. Max does not know the exact name and origin of all of the corals; for example, there are more than 4500 coral species within 31 families. He know which families the aquarium has, but pinning down the exact species is much more difficult. The introduction of so-called “exotics” or “invasive species” in locations they do not naturally belong is a possible threat to the naturally occurring species that do belong there. In the Netherlands, for instance, the native flat oyster has been expressed and replaced by the intentionally introduced Japanese oyster. Max has stated that they are working with a university to catalog and classify their coral, so who know what the future may hold!

Here are some other interesting facts from Max:

• The breeding program was utterly unsuccessful for the first 8 years, it was a process of trial and error. For example, initially there was massive problem with algae and the use of grazing fish. Until they managed to dial it in 10 years ago.
• The salt water is produced in house using groundwater and salt, but no sea salt, which is too inconsistent in its composition.
• The water for the coral aquarium is enriched with minerals, including calcium, so that the corals can for their lime skeleton more easily and flourish!
• The ecological processes in the aquarium are not always predictable. A while back the windows were found to be covered in chalky circles. Max consulted Naturalis Biodiversity Center, were in was established that the circles were foraminifera, unicellular eukaryotes. The scientist who identified them was wildly enthusiastic, because no examples of this had ever been cultivated in captivity before!

Burgers’ Ocean is indeed worth a visit! The shark basin, including a Hammerhead shark, is an impressive sight to behold, and there is a tunnel where Eagle Rays and Sting rays swim above one’s head, majestic and beautiful to behold! Unfortunately there was no time to see the newly installed Mangrove ecosystem, so I will defiantly have to to return!

Ingrid

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It would be nice to make a statue during the weeks that we are here. The scrap metal consists of a galvanized gas pipes, rebar, and a small iron oxygen tank. A simple question that posed an interesting challenge for us; what could we make? The tank was the key, it gave the inspiration to create a diver. After an extensive brainstorming session, the first design was sketched on paper.

In order to get the dimensions of the diver right, we used Veran as a model. However, due to all the current discussion in society around gender identification, we decided to make the dive gender neutral.

We set out in good spirits to build our diver, however, soon we found that it was not so simple as we had hoped. The gas pipes were very difficult to bend into a desired shape, and welding two different metals together in an art unto itself. After practicing and consulting digitally with our welding specialists in the Netherlands, we mastered this aspect of welding, even with the wrong electrodes!

On Coral Day the diver was revealed to the public. An unexpected bit of testing and quality control took place, usually it is the children who climb all over our artificial reefs, but this time it was an Indonesian woman who knew a good bench when she saw one.

The children loved being the “dive buddy” of the diver; wearing their self-painted traditional diving goggles, they lay on the table next to the diver, dreaming of adventures in the underwater world. And so a name for our diver became quickly apparent: “Buddy.”

After Coral Day Buddy is baptized in the sea. With neither theory, nor diving lessons, it went into the water and found a nice spot on the reef in front of the Mimpi Indah Resort. Buddy has a basket in its hands, to show that they are always tending to the coral, coral gardening. Buddy swims from the Domus Hippocampi, placed on Coral Day 2018, to the pyramids the had been sunk the year prior.

As usual, we plant various coral on Buddy in the subsequent dives. We notice that several fish have already taken up residence in Buddy’s base. Every time we meet Buddy, we check to see if the fish are still there, and if more are moving in, the population increases in just a matter of days. Such an fascinating sight!

I wish I could peer into the future. How will Buddy look in 5 years, in 10? Next year in mid-May, we will return to Bangka to start repairing the damaged reef by building a new reef and transplant coral on it.

The post CoralGardening expands appeared first on CoralGardening.

The festival is organized by Suara Pulau in order to increase awareness of the importance of coral reefs. Every year a new section of artificial reef is placed. This year the reef is the “The Domus Hippocampi,” it is designed by Teguh Ostenrik, a famous Indonesian artist. It is built by Yaysan Terumbu Rupa (YTR) with the help of donations from many sponsors. When we arrived on Banka Island, The Domus stands prominently on land, ready and waiting. A few days prior to Coral Day a team from YTR arrives to do the final preparations to deploy The Domus on Coral Day itself.

The YTR team consists of volunteers, who may or may not have experience with the installation of artificial reefs. This makes it very important to create a solid and effective plan to sink The Domus before we proceed. Because we also have broad experience and input, the meetings are conducted in three languages: Indonesian, English, and Sign Language. It is funny and interesting to see how all of the knowledge of the various volunteers is integrated and used. Ultimately a belay method is chosen to lower the reef onto the ocean floor. Belaying is the same technique climbers use to go up and down on a rope.

The Domus consists of 3 parts, and is 23 meters long. It will be anchored using 12 blocks made of concrete and stone. The blocks were specially made using ideas and methods we devised in order to make them a more attractive and hospitable habitat to new coral recruits. The blocks are placed on their locations before Coral Day, so that we get gain experience using the belay method. This is not as easy as it looks! The blocks are small, but rather heavy. The first blocks go down uncontrolled, luckily we are able to learn from our mistakes, and with some revised techniques the following blocks go down smoothly.

There are about 200 guests on Coral Day. The various sponsors are present, and so is the head of the district of North Minahasa, Vonny Panambunan. There are speeches and a ceremony where The Domus Hippocampi is blessed. This consists of a traditional dance and throwing coloured powders and water into the air. This is great fun, and all the children are splashed with colour and they look painted afterward.

When all the ceremonies are over, it is time to place the first of the 3 Domus sections into the water. First it is made to float with the aid of air-filled jerry cans, then it is towed to the location over the seabed with the unified strength of a team of divers. Finally it is slowly lowered into position. We have learned much from the lowering of the anchor blocks, and the first Domus section goes down in a graceful and controlled manner. We coordinate underwater operations and place the structure on exactly on the spot we chose. When the section is in place, it is time to add the coral to the artificial reef. Veran gave the volunteers a crash course in attaching corals to the structure, and assists Teguh in placing the first piece of coral. The other two sections of The Domus Hippocampi are placed on the next day.

It has been a beautiful day! We want to thank everyone who has contributed to making this day possible! Especially Ulva Takke, from Suara Pulau, for organizing the event. Mimpi Indah Resort for the accomondation and the great food. Also the entire team of the Yayasan Terumbu Rupa foundation (YTR) for the construction of the artificial reef and their great teamwork during the installation of the reef. All of the sponsors and of course Teguh Ostenrik for the design of The Domus Hippocampi. Thank you all so very much!

An impression of Coral Day made by Virginia Veronica Gerungan

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