Watercolours Dive Centre Blog

Air Berani beach was cleaned on Wednesday by the Chatsworth International school on their visit to Watercolours on the Perhentian Islands. Well done everyone!

We collected a lot of rubbish again, including my personal record of 6 nappies in one clean-up (yuck). Thanks to everyone who took part, in particular Tracy Tomtene who is a photographer/journalist who will write an article on environmental issues of the Perhentian Islands (www.traceytomtene.com). We noticed that many plastic bags had washed on the beach after falling from the rubbish platforms. We have informed the authorities that the rubbish platforms are inadequate for the volume that is produced on the islands these days.

Pictured is the beach clean, the rubbish we collected, and Sam and Maaarten who retrieved a fishing net from the reef on the same day.

We’ve just completed more reef surveys as part of the Sustainable Island Programme. Another talented bunch of divers from KL came in to help monitor our reefs and to have lots of fun in the process. Apart from an abortive attempt to survey Tokong Laut (not enough corals at the right depth - sorry, my fault guys) the surveys went very well. A full report on the MUW forum (click here). The Roll of Honour:

SIP #3 Participants:
1.Lady Boss Shafi 2.bijan 3.bajaulaut 4.Buoyantvenus 5.Daniel Lim 6.Trigger Fish

Videographers:
1.RoCKET 2.RoCKET’s assistant, labu

We would like to send out a MASSIVE thank you to the divers who give up their time to help survey or reefs, Shafi and the rest of the Wild Asia team, the Reef Check dudes and of course Sime Darby Plantations who make all of this possible with their environmental awareness and generous funding. Whenever I get down about environmental impacts I know that I can cheer myself up by looking around me at all the enthusiasm and talent in the individuals and organisations who are fighting to make a difference.

We’ve just had a fantastic bunch of people visit Watercolours to survey the reefs of the Perhentian Islands. The surveys were part of the Sustainable Islands Programme, a joint collaboration between Reef Check and Wild Asia. The programme is sponsored by Sime Darby and we are very grateful for their input and help. Until i get some info and photos on our blog for you to see, why not visit Malaysian Underwater to read their report. There are a number of photos that are worth looking at!

The Roll of Honour. We would like to thank:

(Shafi) Shafinaz Suhaimi, (Deepblu) Izwar Zakri (Scubabunny), Nur Lela Musrom (Mun) Tang Kah Mun(Miezegreat) Ummi Haslinda (Eve) Evelyn Wong (Belle) Belle Tang (Watercow) Daniel Chua (Jgshuwei) John Goh Shu Wei, Cheah See Siang, and Lee Yeon Huat.

A big shout out to the video guys too: RoCKET (Emran Taib), Ariffin, Ted Adnan & Helmy.

Izwar Zakri is credited for this fantastic photo.

Just in case you were interested, we are using the Reef Check survey methodology to monitor the health of our reefs and to indicate any potential declines in reef health. You too can participate, just see our Reef Check Eco-Diver course.