marine life PNG

2011-08-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

We currently have two marine biologists staying with us at Lissenung. Daniel Godoy is from New Zealand and is the only turtle researcher over there, so it was great to have him here. Ian is also from New Zealand, but is currently completing his PhD in marine biology at James Cook University in Townsville. He researches the impacts of climate change on the connectivity of reef fish populations in PNG. Both are partly sponsored by Lissenung Island Resort in that they are being charged a nominal amount for accommodation, meals and diving.

Dan offered to hold a presentation about turtles at the Enuk Community School on 10 August. Turtles are declining drastically in numbers, and PNG is one of only a few places in the Pacific that still has a reasonable population of these critically endangered species. However, Papua New Guineans eat both the turtle and her eggs, commercial fishing is substantial and rubbish often gets thrown in the ocean. Time to educate the kids so hopefully, their generation will look after turtles more!!

The kids were very interested and listened intently. Dan did a great job, keeping the talk in easy-to-understand English as the kids only learn English in grade 5. Lots of questions were asked and answered, and we even had a turtle drawing competition, with the first three winners getting a small prize.

Daniel explaining about turtles to the kids at Enuk
Community School

Lythia, the teacher, as well as 6 student teachers from the Port Moresby Teachers College, who are on their practical at Enuk, were also engrossed in the subject. Lythia wrote down a lot of points on the blackboard so they could discuss more later.

Next week, we'll have the kids over at Lissenung for a snorkelling session, should be great fun!

Building a human leatherback turtle so the kids get
an idea about just how big they are

The next morning, Dan, Ian and I went to Ral Island for a snorkel session, and also to check out something that Silas had talked about the day before. Apparently, when he had taken Ian and Dan to Ral the previous time, he saw some locals collect what appeared to be turtle eggs. This had happened a few days ago, but we still thought it'd be worth checking out.

As we were getting closer to Ral Island, we could see a banana boat and some local people on the beach. Ian joked "Haha, they are probably taking eggs now!". Unfortunately, he was right, the people had collected approx. 100 eggs from a fresh nest. Bugger, we were about 10 - 15 minutes too late to rescue these eggs!!!

Local turtle egg collectors at Ral Island. They say they
just stopped for a break on their way home to their island
and saw the turtle tracks on the beach. The tracks led
them straight to the nest. They will eat the eggs and/or
sell them for 20 toea (approx. A$/US$ 0.09)

Tracks of a Green Turtle at Ral Island. You can just see
Ian's toes at the bottom of the pic, so you get an idea of
how big the tracks are.

We talked to them for a while, explaining how bad it is to eat all the turtle eggs as only one out of 100 - 300 eggs (depending on species) will actually survive long enough to produce eggs herself. I wanted to take all of the eggs of them as I know Ral Island's traditional resource owners, and these people were not them, which means I had as much right to the eggs as these people did. But since they found the eggs before we even got there, Dan was more diplomatic than I and asked for 30 eggs only.

Negotiations with the locals about how many eggs we
can take from their collection so we may rescue them.
The plan is to "nest" them again at Lissenung. After a
while, we are allowed to take 31 out of approx. 100 eggs.

Nope, not ping pong ball, but eggs of a Green Turtle.
The shell is very soft and can have some dents in it.
After approx. 55 days (normally between 50 - 70 days,
but probably sooner here due to warmer climate), the
baby turtles will hatch.

Me digging a new nest on Lissenung Island

Carefully picking the eggs out of the esky and placing

them into the new nest. The turtle embryo attaches to the
side of the shell. This is the embryo's "placenta", it's how
the CO2 goes out and O2 gets back in. Remember, turtles
need oxygen to live, you often see them at the surface.

If the egg is turned, the embryo may become detached

from the shell, and with that, the air supply to the

embryo is interrupted. It's a bit like your reg coming

loose from your dive tank....

One by one, the eggs are placed into their new nest,
under the watchful eye of Chivas

"Mum, are you doing that properly??"

31 turtle eggs in their new nest

"Awesome, 31 more turtles to swim
with from my beach!!"

2011-08-06T17:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, our friends Dan & Sian went to Enuk Island, kitted out with an old sheet, some paint and paint brushes and their creative caps firmly on their heads. The plan was to make a sign to say Thank-you to the school that had donated the chairs and desks, Cairns West High. Here are some happy snaps:

The kids are taking this very serious, and are very
careful in drawing and painting.

Every kid places his or her hand print on the sheet.
Luckily, it was water-based paint!!

Me, too! Me, too! I want to put my hand print on, too!

Thank you Cairns West High!

What a work of art! Well done, Enuk kids, and thank you,
Cairns West High!

2011-07-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

After some pretty shitty diving conditions over the weekend and on Monday, the weather finally started to improve yesterday. A large stingray, a devil ray and a school of big-eye jacks as well as the usual array of sharks at Peter's Patch was a good start to yesterday's dive day. The second dive at Matrix was a nice drift dive, with a bunch of titan triggerfish, a large crocodile fish and some smaller stuff.

Last but not least, the group stopped at the "Stubborn Hellion", a B25 plane wreck for a quick look. As the plane lies in only 12m of water, we do this as a residual air dive, i.e. keep 70 bar in your tank on dive 2 and use it here. After about 20 minutes, you've seen it all anyway, and there isn't much else around to look at.

Today, the sun is out, hurray, and the Der Yang shipwreck and a Catalina floatplane are on the menu for the morning dives, with our special Mandarinfish dive to follow this afternoon.

Tiny, but oh so colourful fish!

2011-07-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

A bunch of very happy divers returned from Albatross & Kavin II yesterday! With the current still coming in for the first dive, Albatross was the obvious choice. A blue-spotted stingray, several white tip and grey reef sharks, as well as a big school of batfish and some Spanish mackerel kept the divers entertained. Unfortunately, the current changed towards the end of the dive and after an hour surface interval, the second chosen spot Danny's Bommie was so murky that vis had dropped to only 15m. Not good enough, so the divers went over to Kavin II instead. The trusty Pygmy seahorse still sits on his fan in 17m of water, but no photographers in this group, so after a quick look, they went on along the wall. Photographers can't seem to be torn away from the Pygmy, missing everything else around them. They would have missed the turtle and a school of 7 bumphead parrot fish!! That's not a big number for a school of those parrot fish, but apparently what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in size. Sandy reckons they were HUGE!!

Bumphead parrot fish at Sipadan. Photo courtesy of our good friends Stella
and Yogi Freund, who came across this large school during their WWF Coral
Triangle Photo Expedition in 2009/2010. Check out their amazing journey on
http://blogs.panda.org/coral_triangle/about/. You can also see more of the
brilliant photos that Yogi takes on http://www.jurgenfreund.com/

2011-07-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

More photos from our donation run:

Enuk Island Community School now has new desks
and chairs, thanks to our friends Andrew Bowes and
his wife, who were the instigators in all this!

These three nurses are so happy that all they have to
do now to sit a patient up in bed is to pump the back-
rest up by food. No more bending over, good-bye back-
aches!! Thanks to our friends at the Calvary Hospital
in Cairns!

Uncle Pete (Peter McEwan) and the boys, busy off-loading
the beds at Kavieng hospital. Uncle Pete is the president
of the Kavieng Rotary Club.

2011-07-19T00:56:00.000-07:00

Finally, photos from the hospital delivery! :)

Busy unpacking in the hospital mess. Not all the stuff
in this picture came through us, but we helped with the
unpacking anyway!

Hot and sweaty, but happy! Matron, Dr Kuk, me and
Meryenne (left to right)

Our driver Benson, or rather his wife Margreth, got to benefit from some of the above goods just recently, when she had her first baby boy. Ten years in the making (they just loved the practice so much, I guess), Elijah Benson was born after 6 hours of labour and weighed in at 2.7kg. Sandy, our relief manageress, almost became a midwife on the boat to town as contractions came in quickly.

Benson is now learning to change nappies, and came to work real proud the other day after his first "nappy change experience". Lets see how long that lasts, before he hands the dirty work to Margreth.....

Happy Families!
Benson, Margreth, the new addition
to the family, and proud Mama
Margreth, who is happy with her first
grandchild! Congratulations!!!

What a day!!

2011-05-03T00:36:00.000-07:00

On one of his visits to Lissenung, our good friend Andrew Bowes from PNG Holidays and I talked about how Lissenung had bought some school chairs for one of the schools at Enuk. Well, we bought the chairs....our guests that had visited Enuk Island during their stay at Lissenung had actually paid for them.

Anyway, a few weeks after he went home to Cairns, Andrew skyped me and asked whether we would be interested in some school desks to go with those chairs. Is the Pope catholic? I asked. Of course we are interested in those chairs. How to get them here, though? How many chairs are we talking? Oh, about 55 or 60.... Well, we'll need a container for that, so lets see if we can't get other stuff as well.

Cue Peter Mc Ewan, our friend here in Kavieng and president of the Kavieng Rotary Club. He got onto the internet and through a friend of a friend got in touch with Jennifer from QLD Health. Another friend of ours, Greg Parr, got me in touch with the Calvary Hospital in Cairns. Last but not least, Andrew Bowes has friends at Wicked Campervans, who's storage room we also raided for pillows, sheets and blankets. Funny that, the backpackers don't want to use the pillow of another backpacker, they want to buy new stuff. Never mind that no hotels throw out pillows after each use..... Never mind, though, we are happy with this attitude, it netted us enough pillows and sheets to kit out the hospital in Kavieng and have some left overs. Mike Ball also came to the party and donated a bunch of sheets and pillow cases, all still in the plastic wrapping from the laundry service!!
After a week of picking stuff up, packing it strategically into a container, having said container road-delivered to Townsville where it got trans-shipped to Port Moresby and eventually Kavieng, customs got in the way! Of course they were trying to charge import duty on the donated goods, but eventually,

Yesterday, I went to Kavieng town and delivered 3 hospital beds, a gurney, 4 physio beds, a weight chair (for people that need to be weighed, but can't stand) and a box full of blood pressure cuffs to the Kavieng Hospital today. The three hospital beds are the first ones in our local hospital that can be raised and lowered semi-automatic. Most of the hospital beds in Kavieng are just standard beds, like in your bedroom, but much more basic and uncomfortable. Imagine having an op and having to sit yourself up, without the help of the bed. The gurney that takes patients from surgery to the ward doesn't even have a mattress!

It is truly humbling to see Dr Watt (head doctor of the hospital) and the nurses so happy with new beds for their patients! Kenji, who is our Japanese Physiotherapist friend (those of you that have enjoyed the magic of his fingers will remember him), was jumping up and down with joy over his physio beds. It puts life into perspective, makes you wonder why you were so upset about who left the toilet seat up. And it also made me determent to get more stuff up here. So, if anyone lives in or near Cairns and has access to hospital stuff, please let me know. We need the following items urgently, plus more, of course:

- wheelchairs

- walking frames

- crutches

- a couple of corsets for spinal injuries, such as spinal compressions fractures etc.

Photos of the delivery yesterday will follow as soon as I have time to go through them all.

Diving? How does that go again?

2011-04-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the last time I went diving, but it has been a long time since I've been out on the boat. Our friends Mandy & Steve visited and talked me into joining them on Thursday. I'm glad they were so persuasive, it was a great morning out.

We went to Albatross Passage, as the current was coming in and with full moon just three days prior, it should be running quite strong, so bringing lots of fish action with them. We were not disappointed! In fact, the first dive was so good that we decided to do the second dive at Albatross, also. Unfortunately, during our one-hour surface interval, the rain came and it got quite dark down there at times. However, the current was still running strong, so the water was a bit clearer than on the first dive.

Top of the reef at Albatross Passage, and this is only
the small stuff.

Visibility wasn't that great, and I'm not a very good
photographer, so this photo shows only part of a big
school of Barraducas.

This was a decent size Grey Reef Shark, and he/she
seemed to be interested in checking us out as much
as we wanted to see him/her closer.

This is what I love about Albatross: You have big stuff on
one side, and then, when you are bored with that (yeah,
right, as if...), you have a beautifully covered wall on the
other side.

Tsunami in Japan

2011-03-14T03:26:00.000-07:00

The remains of the Tsunami have reached New Ireland on Friday night at about 22.45 with a maximum wave height of about 0.50 meters. In comparison, the week prior to the tsunami, we had a big ocean swell from the same direction of 6-8 feet (1.8-2.4m), which made our surfing guests very happy.

Visibility has been quite good over the last couple of days with an average of 25-30 meters. On Saturday we saw, apart from a myriad of smaller fish, a big school of Barracudas, two Eagle Rays and a couple of Grey Reef Sharks. Sunday, our guests decided to shoot macro and came back with some seriously stunning photographs.Today, they went out for wide angle photos and once again had some stunning results of beautifully overgrown reefs teeming with life.

Nozaki had a bit of a scare when she couldn't get in touch with her best friend Yoshie Goke, but fortunately, this was probably due to overload of phone lines or lack of power. On Saturday afternoon, Nozaki finally spoke to Yoshie and was assured that all was good. Dietmar and Nozaki had a look at Google maps today and worked out that the wave probably stopped about 400m in front of Yoshie's house. We are so relieved! Nozaki's family is further south in Kyusyu and they are fine, too.

I'm in Sydney at the moment, having just attended OzTek Dive Show, and I've been glued to the TV today. The pictures emerging from Japan are horrendous and our thoughts are with all of our friends in Japan.

It's been a cruel year, but I think we really need to stop and think what we do to our Earth. As a friend of ours said "Mother Earth is one pissed-off woman" and she is right. We can't continue to keep on taking. We've got to start giving back!!

Take care everyone, wherever you are.

Help the victims of Cyclone Yasi & Win a Holiday at Lissenung Island Resort, Papua New Guinea

2011-02-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

A group of like minded businesses grouped together to see how we can best support the flood and cyclone victims in addition to direct donations. We thought that by rewarding the kindness and generosity of everyone who is donating AUD 50 or more, we might even increase the total amount collected. The reward will be the chance to win an awesome price:

A holiday for 1 person at LISSENUNG ISLAND RESORT, Kavieng, Papua New Guinea, including 7 nights accommodation in a single room with ensuite, all meals, 5 dive days with 2 boat dives per day, tanks & weights, complimentary shore diving on our house reef in the afternoon, round trip airport transfer, donated by Lissenung Island Resort.
Roundtrip airfare from Brisbane, Sydney or Cairns to Kavieng incl. airtaxes, travel insurance and visa fees, donated by Diversion Dive Travel
A set of snorkel gear, including mask, snorkel, fins, booties and bag, donated by Scubapro-Uwatec

The total value of this awesome package is AUD 4250.00

It is very easy to go into the draw to win this fantastic holiday. All you need to do is donate AUD 50 or more before 13 March 2011 to The QLD Premiers Disaster appeal or The Salvation Army and send a copy of your donation receipt to

EMAIL: yasi@diversiondivetravel.com.au
or
MAIL: Diversion Dive Travel, PO BOX 191, Redlynch 4870, Australia
or
FAX: +61 740390300

Donations made after 14 February 2011 only. Donations made prior to this date do not qualify for the draw. Prize will be drawn on March 13 at OZTEK 11 in Sydney and you are welcome to bring your donation receipts to us at the show (Lissenung Island Resort in booth 9, Diversion Dive Travel in booth 48). Winner will be notified by email and through publication in the press. Price is not transferable or redeemable for cash. Not included: Accommodation and/or meals enroute, Items of personal nature, gratuities, dive insurance (DAN insurance is strongly recommended!). Prize must be taken within 12 months of draw.

Good-bye Shrek

2011-01-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

I have some really sad news. On Saturday, 21 January 2011 at 6pm, our cute, crazy, funny and sweet parrot Shrek passed away. It came totally out of left-field. On Friday, he was fine, screeching and flying around the island, but he didn’t come home that night. That’s a bit unusual, normally he is in “his” tree at the back of the kitchen at around 6pm. But, he has stayed out before, so we thought he is probably catching up with one of his girlfriends, it being Friday night and all.

Saturday morning comes and goes, still no sign or noise of Shrek, and we are starting to get worried. At 3pm, the girls found him in “his” tree, apparently asleep. Nozaki got him down and realised straight away that something was wrong. She wrapped him in a towel, which he normally hates, but didn’t have the strength to complain about this time. That was not a good sign!! At 5pm, he started wheezing, at 6pm he was dead. I think he might have picked up a parasite from one of the wild animals that live on the island.

We still can't get believe that he is gone. Every time I walk between the office and the kitchen, I wait for him to screech, do his wolf whistle or say "Hey Shrekkie!!". He was a unique little fella...

As our friend Hutch wrote on our Facebook page, "Flying higher than ever before Shrek, you may be gone but not forgotten!"

New family member

2011-01-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

The last time we had a decent rain (I mean more than 15 drops) is at least 4 1/2 months ago. We've had a few showers since then, but they were all usually just enough to save us having to hand-water the veggie garden. All of New Ireland is suffering from the draught, but at Lissenung, we are lucky that we have a desalinator, a machine that turns saltwater into drinkable water. We ran out of rainwater over 3 months ago, so without the desal, we would have been forced to drink beer and wine all day. Hmmmmm, maybe we are not so lucky after all .....

On 29 December, Peni found a small cuscus, a marsupial belonging to the possum family. We have three adult cuscus on the island, so to find a baby was no surprise. Only a few days earlier, Ruthie had found a dead one, and the one that Peni brought in looked a lot like the less fortunate one. We gave the little creature some water and she drank and drank and drank. We wondered whether the other one had died from dehydration or lack of food due to the draught. Peni's new friend was still a baby, she couldn't climb properly yet and had a really hard time holding on to the food we gave her. Apparently, they stay in mum's pouch till they are 7 or 8 months, so mabye mum had kicked them out because she was finding it hard to take care of herself in the dry weather, let alone look after a baby.

Little cuscus on arrival and after a big drink

With no rain in sight, we decided to keep the baby cuscus until we could be sure that she would be able look after herself. We got a cardboard box, made a nice bed with some old towels and that was to be her new home. As they are nocturnal, it would be difficult to keep her in the box at night, but that's how it had to be.

She settled in very quickly and was not really afraid of us humans. In fact, she loved to cuddle, and still does. At feeding time, we sit on the office couch, she with her bum snuggled into my side, wolfing down a huge portion of pawpaw or, as of late, hibiscus leaves and flowers. She also loves apples, but they are a bit hard to come by up here in Kavieng.

That apple is almost as big as the little cuscus!

Of course we needed to find a name for the little one. At first, my suggestion was to call her Rain, as she had appeared in one of those very rare rain showers. Also, her tinkles are more like rain squalls - pretty full on! Dietmar didn't like it, though, so for a while, she was just "Baby". Then Alex, Monica, Ross & Malcolm visited from Sydney, who are all more or less Italians. Malcolm came up with the name "Giacchetta", which means little jacket in Italian. Since she has such a beautiful fur coat of her own, we thought that would be a very fitting name. Now, Malcolm doesn't even know how to spell Giacchetta, which is I said above they are more or less Italians.

We haven't been able to keep Giacchetta in her box for long, so she now sleeps in one of the office cupboards during the day and roams around the office at night. The other morning I found her sitting on top of the air conditioning. Every night, just before I go to bed, she has a big feed and we have a cuddle together. I have lost count of how many times I have fallen asleep on the office couch, with Giacchetta snuggled up against my belly.

Cute, hey?

Luckily, our hibiscus plants have not
sufferd from the lack of rain!

Happy New Year

2011-01-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great festive season, may 2011 be a year filled with fun, love, laughter and health. Oh, and the odd lotto win of a couple of millions....

We've had a great couple of weeks, although we were run off our feet with lots of guests staying with us. Our friend Mike even had to sleep in the office, which he doesn't mind, he loves the air con. Jen & Kim visited us for the third time this year, and as always, they brought stacks and stacks of stuff for the school and our first aid post at Lissenung, also called "Lissenung Haus Sik (hospital, i.e. the house you go to when you are sick). Bandages, bandaids, creams, wound dressings and cleaning swipes and much more will all come in very handy when Nozaki and I play doctors.

We had a huge Xmas dinner, with a ham, a turkey (my only cooking job all year), mud crabs, lobster, Nozaki's yummy sushi rolls, whole fish and more. Afterwards, we were treated to a singsing by the culture group from Enuk Island.

On New Year's Eve, it was Pinapple's (her real name is Alison, but everyone calls her Pineapple, or Pine) birthday. After another huge seafood BBQ, the girls brought in a mango birthday cake, decorated with pineapples and we all sang "Happy Birthday". Again, we had the kids from Enuk come over and perform for us, with the final song being another Happy Birthday song for Pine.

We had a fantastic night and in my 5 years on the island, this was actually the first time we saw the new year in at midnight, instead of 9pm (we call that Kiwi New Year's) because the divers are too tired to stay up! :)

The dancers in action on New Year's Eve

"The band"

Pineaple taking photos of the group as they
sing a birthday song for her.

Lemus and Ral Islands

2010-11-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

What, I hear you say, Two posts in as many days? What can I say, I'm on a roll, okay?! Plus, the stuff we saw at Lemus and Ral Islands today is too good not to share. Conny unfortunately did not follow up with her incredible find of the mimic octopus from yesterday, but not for lack of trying. Peni had so wanted to see it, I don't think he saw much else, so focused was he on the octopus. Alas, no cigar. Still, lots of other stuff to see...

Robust Gostpipefish, this one is the female. Her partner was also there,
but they were obviously having domestics, as one was on that side
of the coral, the other around the corner.

Baramundi Cold, posing nicely for me!

Chomodorididae Glossodoris atromarginata

Another decorator crab. I find these little buggers so
very ingenious! I mean, how clever to stick bits of coral,
rubble, grass etc. on your head and body so you blend in?

Another one for my "weird animals I've never seen before"
category. This one might also be a jelly fish, but again,
if anyone out there has any ideas, please let me know!

Where on earth did that month just go?

2010-11-26T20:52:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted any stories, photos or just silly comments. There has been plenty to report, a few photos to share, so lets get to it.
A dive at my favourite dive site, The Bottleshop, produced some great shots.

Scorpionfish

How cute is this little Blennie? They
always look like they are smiling!

While our friends Imi and Christopher Bartlett were here, Dietmar and I took the opportunity to join them on the dive boat one Sunday. Danny's Bommie was as great as always, as was Kavin II, even without Pygmy Seahorse. Christopher had given me some camera hints, which I was keen to try out. The first photos at Danny's Bommie were still "practice photos", but at Kaving, I was slowly getting the hang of it, .... at least I think so.... feel free to disagree.

Orangutan Crab - what a hairy little bugger!

For want of knowing the proper name, I've called this
species "Green Crab".

Dietmar Smartypants just tells me this crab lives in the Halimeda algae, so it could be a Halimeda Crab. Of course, after looking this up on the internet, Mr Smartypants is right.

Speaking of not knowing what is what down there, have a look at this weirdo below. Christopher and I took stacks of photos, but mine didn't turn out very well, and as far as I know, neither did Christopher's. It's really hard to photograph something like this in blue water, especially when there is other stuff floating around. That doesn't make identifying this creature any easier, and no, it's not a fishing hook/floater!

Jellyfish? It was approx. 20cm long from tail till the bent
where it then comes down to the two eyes, or whatever
they were.

If anyone out there has any ideas as to what this could be, I'd love to hear from you!

The divers just came back from Ral Island, a dive Dietmar and I were meant to join. Unfortunately, duty called, but according to the divers, they saw a mimic octopus! Yeah, right, and pigs might fly one day. You are just saying that to make us jealous, it's probably another one of those diver stories. No, no, we have pictures!! Great, thanks for telling me, I wanted to come along, remember?!?!?!?!

Well, I've just informed them that we are going back to Ral tomorrow, whether they like it or not. I want to see Mimi, the mimic octopus! Luckily, the guests are also keen to see her again, so Ral it is tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll get some decent photos, and hopefully, Mimi is still there.....

House Reef 24 October

2010-10-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, and neither Dietmar nor I felt like working. No surprises there, so we geared up and hopped in for a quick dive on our house reef. Well, I did a quick dive of 33 minutes, Dietmar finally emerged from the water after 90 minutes!

The visibility was pretty awful, as the tide was going out and flushing all the dirt from the mangroves along. Not many of our photos turned out, there was just too much stuff in the water. For those of you that have dived here, the little bommie on the corner, the one with the gorgonian fan, is the temporary home of a moray eel. Not a big one, and unfortunately, the photos I took are just too poor to publish.

Slightly better is this shot of a purple anemone

Dietmar found this little beauty, have a look at how small he is. That's Dietmar's pointy finger in the second picture.

Juvenile Flounder

It's only slightly larger than the first link
of Dietmar's pointy finger

Mahonia Na Dari

2010-10-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I last wrote, so lots to tell this time. I've been away for 10 days, travelling in PNG and dear me, the internet in most places is terrible. I didn't know just how spoiled we are with our satellite broadband internet and that I can even answer e-mails from our bedroom with our WiFi. Hence, whilst away, I only answered the most important e-mails and at one stage, I even had to engage Dietmar as my secretary, telling people I would get back to them as soon as I had figured out why I could receive e-mails without problems, but couldn't send anything. Seeing Dietmar, Missy, Chivas, Shrek, Nozaki and the staff wasn't the only reason I am happy to be home again!

My first stop on the trip was Walindi, or rather Mahonia Na Dari, which means "Guardian of the Sea" in Tokples (talk place = the language spoken in that particular area of Kimbe Bay in New Britain, the Talasea Peninsula).
Mahonia believes that one of the best hopes for preserving Papua New Guinea's marine biodiversity is to build a grassroots constituency for conservation. Mahonia supports community-based conservation and resource management in Kimbe Bay and the Islands Region of PNG. Their highly successful marine education program has already proven to be a powerful tool in building this support by increasing environmental awareness and inspiring local action to protect coral reefs. One of the main components of their marine education and awareness program is the Marine Environment Education Program, MEEP in short.

The reason for my visit at Mahonia was to talk to Lorna Romaso, who is the Education Officer at Mahonia. I've known Lorna for a while and she even came to visit us once at Lissenung with a group of students from one of the local high schools. Unfortunately, funding for the New Ireland schools dried up, so not much has been done since 2006. At Mahonia, however, Lorna is still in full swing, educating teachers, youth ambassadors and school students alike. She has a wealth of information that I wanted to tap into as we would like to learn from Mahonia Na Dari and start to run small versions of their MEEP here in New Ireland. I knew what I would like to achieve, but I didn't know how to get started and Lorna has provided some great ideas. Thank you Lorna!!

Thanks also goes to Cecilie and Max Benjamin from Walindi Plantation Resort, who accommodated me free of charge for the 4 nights I was there. Cecilie is the Chair of Mahonia and took some time out of her busy day to accompany me on my visit to the education centre and to answer lots of my questions.

The next stop was in Port Moresby to attend the National Tourism Conference. I stayed with our good friends Sandy and Ian Rosen, and Sandy and I got lots of girlie time in. We went shopping, we lunched, we visited the beauty shop and then we shopped some more.

The conference was very informative and a great opportunity for networking. I met some very interesting people and caught up with some of my friends.

25 September, PADI Project Aware Clean-up Day

2010-09-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was PADI Project Aware Clean-up Day, and since we tend to keep our island tidy at all times, we helped the Enuk Island Community with the cleaning of their island. Current guests Nicola, Megan, Elly & Uschi all volunteerd to dive and clean the channel between the two islands that make up Enuk Island.

Many thanks go to Steve Wannell from Scubapro-Uwatec for donating mask & snorkel sets, to the guys & girls from Dive Adventures and to Hutch from Surf Travel Company for donating other prizes such as pencils, books, water colours, balls and stacks more.

Here are some photos from a fun morning:

The kids are off to collect the rubbish

Rubbish from the other side of the island arrives
by dugout canoe

Time for sorting and separating!

The dive team arrives back at the collection point
from cleaning the channel

While we wait for the kids to return with the rubbish,
Dietmar takes a picture of this great school project:
Re-forestation of mangrove trees just outside the school!

The prize table, with the kids waiting for the weighing
to begin to find out who has collected the most

First of the mark for measuring her collection is little
Jenny (in front, pulling her blue/white striped top UP)

One, two, three, many! While Dietmar and the head
teacher work out who has won in which category......

... the kids line up for bisquits......

.... and ice-cold cordial

The piles are getting smaller and smaller each year!
It seems that our efforts are paying off, which is
fantastic news!

Group photo after a fun-filled and successful morning

15 September, Lissenung Beach

2010-09-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

We have had three seahorses living just off the beach for some time now. At first, there were only two little ones and we first spotted them approx. the same time as we saw the juvenile Brown Sweetlip. These two have grown a fair bit, and now there is a third one, this one much smaller than the other two. Our reef is a real fish nursery, or kindergarden. So many juveniles, it's awesome! It goes to show that our looking after the reef is really paying of. It also shows that more protected reef areas are needed.

Common Seahorse Hippocampus taeniopterus ??

Albatross Passage 7 September 2010

2010-09-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

Cat & Dan, the dive managers at Walindi Plantation Resort, are visiting us at the moment, and Dietmar went out diving with them yesterday. We have had a fair bit of rain, which is very unusual at this time of the year, so the visibility was not very good. This doesn't bother Dietmar, who loves to stick his head into the reef anyway, looking for small stuff, and yesterday, he was not disappointed.

Ovulide Shell on soft coral

This little Ovulide shell looks so much like its host coral that it is hard to spot. Dietmar has e-mailed his friend Dr. Felix Lorenz, top expert in Ovulides and Cowries, and according to him, it's a Diminovula stigma (Cate, 1978).

Leafy Scorpionfish

This Leafy Scorpionfish lives at Danny's Bommie, next to Albatross Passage. We used to have one of those weird-looking fish there, but hadn't seen it for a while. Peni spotted this one about 2 weeks ago, and was very chuffed with himself.

One can be forgiven for not realising that this is an animal. The decorator crabs are really very clever. They blend into their surroundings by sticking stuff on their shells that looks just like the habitat they live in. I once saw a little piece of seagrass walking at Ral Island, which was a decorator crab trying to pretend to be part of a patch of greenery. Ingenious!!

Decorator Crab - looks like something from another planet?

Nusaum Island, 22 August

2010-08-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

A Sunday morning dive at Nusaum Island brought up this shell that belongs to the Strombus family. The visibility was terrible, probably only 10 - 12m, so there wasn't much point in looking for big stuff. Instead, I had my head firmly down in coral and rubble, to the point where, at one stage, I thought "If someone wants to eat me, I won't know about it until I am inside the beast's tummy!" No nasty big things around here, though, other than maybe hubby, and he won't dare to scare the pants off me. Retaliation from my side would just be too big. :)

Back to the dive, though, where I found this little fella. According to Dietmar, who is an absolute shell nut, Strombus shells are very common. This particular species is not overly common, but common enough not to get too excited about it. Cute little animal inside, though, I just loved the way his little eyes pocked out of his home all cross-eyed.

Strombidae Lambis millepeda

A little cross eyed....

Brilliant photos

2010-08-18T02:35:00.000-07:00

I've been in Cairns for 10 days, where I have loaded a container with donated goods for our hospital in Kavieng. That's a different story, but it means I haven't been in the water for a while. However, instead of seeing my rather average pictures, I've got a real treat for everyone: Check out the photos of our friend and guest Matthias Wildermuth from his trip to Lissenung in June this year. If those pics don't whet your appetite, I don't know what will.

.... a little pre-view of Matthias' photos....

Offer of Sponsorship to marine biology researchers and students

2010-07-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

I have some awesome news to share with you today!! Lissenung Island Resort would like to offer sponsorship to researchers and students in the field of marine biology. We can accommodate 2 researchers/students at a time in twin room accommodation.

If you are interested, have a look at http://www.lissenung.com/sponsorship.htm for all the details. Should you have any questions, just dorp me a line on info@lissenung or Skype me on lissenungdiving.

House Reef 28 July 2010

2010-07-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Dietmar and I walked around the island and found a tiny fish floating close to the shore. At first, we both thought it was a leaf, but on closer inspection, we could see that it was a wee brown fish.

Juvenile Plectorhinchus gibbosus - Brown Sweetlip
.... or little brown fish :)

Dietmar and I thought it was some sort of a cod, with that long shaped forehead, Nozaki reckoned it was something else, although she couldn't tell us what, so I asked Ali again. She works and is friends with Gerry Allen, he of the many fish ID books, and ended up asking him. I expect that Gerry didn't even need to consult one of his books, he probably said without hesitation "oh, that, of course that's a juvenile Plectorhinchus gibbosus!!"

Not a great shot, but it gives you an idea of the size
of the fish next to my size 8 foot.

Clownfish 24 July 2010

2010-07-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

Bad news! I just went diving with Dietmar on our house reef and when we came to the anemone that has been the clownfish's home for who knows how long, there were only 3 residents there. "My" fish has gone! Dietmar and I searched the surrounding area, just in case the fish had found a new home, although why he would do that, I'm not sure. But it's called Hope, I guess. Well, no such luck, we couldn't find him and I am afraid that means that he has gone to Fishie Heaven.

Lexa had asked a friend of hers about the eye sight in the fish's left eye and it was confirmed that most likely, he was blind in that eye. This would certainly make it a lot harder for him to be on the look-out for predators. I had also thought that he looked a bit skinnier lately, but as he still appeared to eat well, I wasn't too worried about that. But coming to think of it, he had some funny stuff hanging out of his mouth when I last saw him on 19 July. It looked almost like snot, and it didn't disappear the whole time I was hanging around, taking pictures, which would have been at least 6 - 7 minutes. It didn't look like he even noticed this, he certainly didn't try to get rid of it. Maybe that was the first sign that something wasn't right?

Look at the arrows, you can faintly see the slimey
stuff hanging from his mouth.

Byebye Fishie!
Last picture taken on 19 July 2010

Albatross Passage, 6 July

2010-07-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Almost two weeks ago now, Dietmar and I joined our friend Dave from Bouganville and his dad John on an afternoon dive at Albatross Passage. The conditions had been great for weeks, so we couldn't wait to get in. We were not disappointed: Stacks of sharks, going back and forth, although the mating season appeared to have finished as there was no chasing happening anymore. But look at these pics, the poor females, they really cop it when the boys get all excited.

Grey Reef Shark at Albatross

This Grey Reef Shark had lots of bite marks where the
males hang on when they mate.

A big school of Barracudas swam back and forth in
front of the wall.

Clownfish 15 July 2010

2010-07-15T01:21:00.000-07:00

The wound is looking great, it doesn't appear as if the cleaner shrimp have done any damage by cleaning to vigorously.
However, the eye looks like a little black stump, almost like Dutch liquorice. The eye is almost covered with skin and looks very dull. I wonder if the fish is now blind in this eye? He appears happy, though, and is still Alpha-fish in the anemone, chasing the smaller clownfish away if they get in the way.

Clownfish 4 July 2010

2010-07-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

Once again a big gap between dives, but the wound is looking good. The eye is still pushed out and down, I am giving up hope that it will ever pop back into its intended spot. I think I might have to get in again soon, just to make sure that the cleaner shrimps are not tearing that wound open again.

Clownfish 25 June

2010-06-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

We have been very busy with guests, broken outboard engines, extra curriculum trips, so I haven't had time to get in the water until today. The wound is looking good, fishie is happy, swimming around and eating.

The lump is still big and still pushing the eye out and down a lot, but it looks like new skin is growing around the edges. Lets hope the cleaner shrimps don't do too much damage when they are cleaning!

On the way back to the beach, I spotted this little decorator crab. It was tiny, maybe 15mm tall at the most, and that without that "antenna" on the head!

Shark mating season???

2010-06-21T14:03:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I joined our guests on the dive boat. It was a public holiday in PNG (Queens Birthday), which is always a good excuse to get out of the office and into the water!

We went to Albatross Passage, probably our best dive site. Once the currents run well and run in the right direction, i.e. in, this is fish soup. It was no different on Monday, with stacks of barracudas, jacks, sweet lips, tuna and sharks.
The interesting bit was that it seems to be shark mating season, with sharks chasing each other along the reef. At one stage, there were three sharks swimming along, like a small train. Unfortunately, the sharks didn't come close enough to take any even half-decent pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Clownfish 13 June 2010

2010-06-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

Dietmar and I were meant to go out on the boat, joining our guests, since it's Sunday and we should have some time off, too, every now and then. However, as is so often the case, something came up and the dive boat left without us. Bugger!!

Once we had dealt with another one of those PNG-moments, we decided to go for a shore dive. After all, our house reef has close to 200 different species of fish identified, so there is plenty to see. I could also check on "my mate" again, so off Dietmar and I went.

I reckon it looks much better again, so lets hope we are not going to have another relapse! There was a bit of a current today, so lots of food zooming past, which he happily snapped up. All this time that I've been watching him, he seemed pretty happy, despite the disfiguring lump on his head, the bulging eye and the discomfort both must bring with them. He is a little battler, that's for sure!!

Clownfish 12 June 2010

2010-06-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a few days can do! Have a look at these pictures, taking only 5 days after the last one, the one where the wound look quite raw. Now, it looks much better again, so my hopes are up, again!

The eye still worries me, though. It looks so painful, the way it's pushed down and out. Lexa says she has seen fish recover from something like this, so that's good news. I'd love to take the fish, cut away all the junk, pop his eye back in and be able to say "There you go, my dear, all good again!" Unfortunately, it's not that easy, but the cleaner shrimp were at it again today, so lets hope they manage to clean up the wound some more. Or are they the ones causing more damage now? According to Lexa, cleaners can also turn into parasites, so these buggers may actually do more harm than good if they peck at the wound every time it is starting to heal.

He still eats happily, as this picture shows !!

Clownfish 7 June 2010

2010-06-13T01:48:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a long stint in the US, attending a dive show, visiting a number of travel agents and having a bit of a holiday. I couldn't wait to jump in the water and visit my little friend to see how he is doing. The photos that Nozaki had taken while I was away looked very promising, so I was quite disappointed when I saw that the wound looked quite angry again.

I had hoped that the fish was well on the way of recovery, but this doesn't look very good at all!

Clownfish 27 May 2010

2010-06-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

Two weeks later, the wound still looks good and more new skin seems to be growing around the edges. Fingers crossed, everyone, lets hope the little guy will recover from whatever this lump on his head is!

Clownfish 12 May 2010

2010-06-13T01:05:00.000-07:00

Dietmar and I are away on a working holiday, so I've asked Nozaki, our Japanese dive instructor, to keep an eye out for our little fish. This is her first picture, taken approx. 3 weeks after the last one. As you can see, the wound seems to be healing, it looks like new skin is growing on the edges.

Clownfish 26 April 2010

2010-06-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

Amazing how the cleaner shrimp made the "crater" bigger and bigger. Just 4 days ago, the hole wasn't quite as big, don't you agree? Lets just hope that the shrimps got all the bad stuff out, just like a surgeon removing a cancer!!

Clownfish 22 April 2010

2010-06-11T22:34:00.000-07:00

Remember how I had said that Lexa was really excited about the picture with the one cleaner shrimp cleaning the clownfish? Well, you can imagine what happened when she saw this photo, with no less than 4 shrimps cleaning the wound, and another 2 waiting patiently for their turn. Interestingly enough, the clownfish didn't seem to mind the shrimp picking at the wound. Maybe the fish knew that this might help?

Saddleback Clownfish 14 April 2010

2010-06-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

Six days later, on 14 April, I jumped in the water again to see how the little fish was doing. To my surprise, the growth had "popped" and there was now a small crater.

The next picture had Lexa all excited as one of her study fields is fish cleaning behaviour. Here, we have a cleaner shrimp of some sort (Periclimines sp.), cleaning out the wound. Apologies for the rather poor quality of the image, but I was in such a hurry to capture the symbiosis that I didn't pay much attention to whether the photo was in focus.

Saddleback Clownfish with a funny lump

2010-06-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

Over Easter, I was teaching an Open Water dive course on our house reef at Lissenung Island, Kavieng, Papua New Guinea. On one of the dives, we swam past a sand anemone with a residing saddleback clownfish family. I had noticed the clownfish before, as the biggest one has a slightly unusual colour. This time, this particular clownfish had some unusual spots on his back, near the spine. I had a closer look at those, then noticed that the fish also had a lump over his left eye. I didn't have my camera with me, so a few days later, once I had completed the dive course and had time, I jumped back in to take the following pictures. Luckily, the fish lives just off our beach!

8 April 2010, growth over left eye, with the eye pushed down and out slightly.

I had no idea what this growth could be, so I asked our friend Alison Green, who is a senior marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy. Alison is incredibly knowledgeable on fish species, but even she wasn't sure what the little fella suffered from, so Dr Lexa Grutter, Coral Reef Ecologist at the School of Biological Science at the University of Queensland, joined us in our quest to find out what had caused the lump. Without doing a biopsy, though, it's almost impossible to work out what the problem is, so Lexa suggested that I catalogue the various stages of the growth and how the fish copes. At one stage, some of Lexa's colleagues, who had also been called in to provide their opinions, gave a rather sad prognosis, but Alison, Lexa and I are still hoping that the fish would eventually recover. Ali is also the one that convinced me to write a blog, so thanks Ali!