Last day in Phi Phi

Today was our last day in Phi Phi and the only thing left on our agenda was to conduct the chaetodont assessment on a good reef.  We chose Bida Nok for this, which is a spectacular dive site with tons of fish and invertebrates.  So the students will compare their observations from Ton Sai Reef with Ko Bida Nok.  Actually, they saw many more chaetodonts today, but we'll tally the numbers a little later. After diving Bida Nok, we had lunch and enough time for one more dive just for fun.  Rather than try a new dive site, we returned to Gareng Heng because it was so good the previous day with the leopard shark sightings.  Today's dive there was even better!  See below...

Here's Bruno, the overweight 2 year old golden retriever who lives at our resort.  He swims in the ocean to cool off, but he's always covered with sand.

I had to show you this photo.  There's a restaurant in Ton Sai Village on Phi Phi that has cats living in a beverage cooler.  They are let out once in a while, but they like to sleep in the fridge.  The orange one goes in too.

I think this is Nat and Kristin again, but I'm not sure.

Here's a beautiful copperband butterflyfish.

Ajarn Mark trying to part the big-eye snappers.

This is Nat and me going through the snappers.  You really can't imagine how many fish there are in these schools.  Without exaggeration, there must be hundreds of thousands.

Down closer to the substrate are some of the fish the students are looking for.  Here are pairs of rip butterflyfish (left) and 8-lined butterflyfish behind the red colored parrotfish.

After the chaetodont assessment dive, the students rested in their usual way before our final dive... at Gareng Heng.

Gareng Heng has so much to see.  Here is a feather star attached to an organpipe gorgonian soft coral.

More big-eye snappers swimming around a  large barrel sponge.

Here's a grouper living inside a barrel sponge for protection.

See if you can find the scorpionfish in this photo.  They are very cryptic and venomous, so we have to be very careful not to get too close.

Snappers again.

Some interesting underwater topography with swim-throughs.

I think that's Morgan.

I don't know who these students are, but they posed for me on the other side of a leopard shark resting in the sand.

These are two-spot snappers.

Barracuda

Lionfish

We thought our previous visit to this reef was special since we saw multiple sightings of an increasingly rare shark.  But today, for those students who were still in the water and not back on the boat, they got the chance to witness two leopard sharks doing a courtship dance near the top of the reef.  WOW, this was an incredible site!  We have good videos of it as well.

These fish are sooooo graceful and beautiful.

I think the students enjoyed their experience here.  Count the smiles.  Here's Nat.

Kristin.

Schmidty.

Mackenzie.

Jacob.

Dixie.

Morgan.

Lyndi.  Sorry I didn't get the chance to photograph all of them getting back on the boat, but trust me... it was 100% smiles.

And so ends another fantastic coral conservation program at Phi Phi.  Hands-on learning; these kids will remember this for the rest of their lives... long after they forget facts they read in textbooks on campus.

Reef Watch

There is a worldwide protocol by which to assess reef health called Reef Watch.  Our students received explanation about this protocol and we conducted an assessment of a local reef in good condition.

The instructors established a 10 x 10 meter areas within which the students swam back and forth in a grid to assess various aspects of the reef.

Bryce

There was a lot of invertebrate reef structure to assess.

Lyndi and Morgan.

M - I - Z !

Stocking the nursery

After lunch, we were met by four marine scientists from the Phuket Marine Biological Center, who are conducting research to determine optimal ways to grow corals for replanting into dead reefs.  We have the unique opportunity to be a part of this important research, and have been participating for the past 11 years.  We take freshly-cut coral fragments and place them into tubes, then put the tubes into racks, and place the racks onto an underwater coral nursery.   

We divide up the students in to four groups, each with a basin containing coral fragments.  The put the fragments into tubes...

...and then inserted the tubes into they plastic mesh rack.  Here are Clarke and Morgan putting their coral fragments into the rack.

Each rack holds 60 fragments.

When the racks were completed, we temporarily hung them over the sides of the boat so they would stay hydrated.

When we had all the racks completed, we swam them out to the underwater nursery.  Here comes Lyndi with a rack.

The racks were placed on each of two platforms, so 28 racks in all were put into the nursery.  The coral fragments will stay here for a year and next year's class will plant them into a dead reef.

Mackenzie

Nat

Lyndi is handing out some zip-ties, which is what we use to fasten the racks to the platform.

Lyndi and Dixie.

The diving we did previous to today gave the students valuable experience in developing their buoyancy skills.  You can see how important it is to be able to control your buoyancy with this reef conservation work.

Lyndi is cutting the ends of the zip-ties.

Here are some fragments that last year's class put int the nursery.  Our students will plant these into a dead reef.  And so the cycle continues...

If any previous students are watching the blog, these are fragments you planted 3 years ago onto dead pieces of branching coral.  They are doing great!

More of previous students' work.