Thursday, March 27, 2008

a big THANK YOU

Monday was the day where my report had to be submitted to the Department office by hook or by crook. Somehow having a dateline is a good thing. It compells me to tighten up my analysis and my writeup, polish it and get ready to present as an end-result. It was a huge struggle trying to complete the report. I'll probably debrief about my project experiences another time. But I want to take this opportunity to thank those who have made my project possible. My vocab and english is not so powerful, so please don't feel offended if I didnt thank you enough with my words. In my heart I am really grateful.


Firstly, would like to thank my main supervisor, Siva (in orange) and also co-supervisor Dr Dan (with a panama hat).


Another of my co-supervisor is Dr Todd from Marine lab. It was the first time he visited Chek Jawa!

Thank you supervisors for being willing to guide, lead, support and encourage me through various ways. Thanks for the great ideas and also for being there when I felt lost and helpless. I might not be the best researcher but I hope my hardwork will make you all proud of me. I have learnt a lot of skills and experiences under you all. They are really useful and invaluable. Thanks for this great journey.


Though not my supervisor, Ria has been significant in my project. She was the one who introduced me to Siva when I thought of working on the mass death at Chek Jawa. Later, she supported me through various many ways. She is also always available to come down frequently to do the monitoring work and even transect work herself. That's really very impressive! She also provided a lot of photos and anecdotal observations of CJ, updating me whenever Johor floods, bringing food and canned drinks for all the volunteers etc etc etc. Thank you Ria!


Another important group of people that I must thank are every single individual that helped me before at my field trips :-)

I am total amazed at how many people that have helped me before! Without volunteers, I can't possibly do this project. I hope you enjoyed working at Chek Jawa. Thank you everyone who helped me before.

Especially want to thank those who helped me not only once, but twice or more. They are Yijun, Pei Hao, Yuchen, Yujie, Raymond, Siyang, Bingquan, Yilin, Robyn, Robert, Liana, July, Yikang, Khairul, Geraldine, Kian Wah, Shuyi, Gerald, Alex, Sam, Nicholas, Gun Kiat and of course Ron.

Would like to thank Yikang and Siyang extra more for being there even during recce trips where we had to cycle up and down from jetty to CJ. Those were the days. We had to wait for an hour long for the boat. Both of you have really ease my project load a lot. Without partnering help like yours, I would have collapsed working alone. Haha.

I would also like to thank the NUS marine (Angie) and eco lab (Tommy) for the equipments. Especially grateful to Ewen for being there and willing to help me with statistics. Also to thank Prof Matthias Roth, Dr Lim Han She and Prof Wong Poh Poh from Geography Department for all the help with regards to the physical aspect of my project. Thanks Dr Daphne Fautin for your great advice on anemones, Joseph Lai for the GPS points from 2001, Zeehan for the photos from previous transects, Cynthia for sharing your project and ideas on salinity, Siti for giving invaluable help regarding how to design a transect sampling method and many others whom I've forgotten to acknowledge. Thank you Uncle Chu for being at all times to fetch us to and fro at Ubin. Your humility impresses me.

Thank you Nparks for allowing me to work at this great place, Chek Jawa. Thank you Choon Beng and Adelle for bridging help along the way at Ubin. Still remember during the earlier days where Choon Beng has to prepare a bicycle the night before so I can use it early next morning for dawn trips. Thank you NUS for this UROPs opportunity. Thanks for the publicities on my project, it gave me a little fame. More importantly, it gave Chek Jawa more attention, horray!

There's simply too many to thank from a blessed heart. Haha. Sorry if I missed out any. But I must also thank my family for unceasingly helping me prepare for trips in terms of logistics and also washing all the sandy and dirty equipment when I come back.

Last but definitely not the least, thank God for being the provider of everything. Thank you for being so real in this period. You have showered so much blessing onto my project, positioning people to help me, ensuring there is no rain in every monitoring or transect session irregardless if its the monsoon season or not. You are truly wonderful!

I sounded like as if this is really the end. Its NOT. Haha. Should be preparing to submit this for a journal, after examinations. Also, Yikang's substrate studies is still ongoing. Hopefully, some people will continue related works in the future after me. Continue to hear more from this blog.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

NUS advertorial featuring my project


The Straits Time, 25 March 2008



Thanks Siva for recommending me to be featured.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Mass death of sea star on Kent beach

Amazing picture of thousands of dead starfish washed up on Kent beach
By VANESSA ALLEN at dailymail.co.uk



For five miles they stretched along the beaches, a gruesome line of dead starfish.

Fishermen and bird-watchers at Pegwell Bay near Sandwich, Kent, discovered a "carpet" of thousands of the creatures lying on the sand just above the water line.

And on the beach at nearby Sandwich Bay, thousands more were photographed by Tony Flashman.

"The dead starfish stretched as far as you could see in both directions," said Mr Flashman, of Kingsdown, Deal.

Environment Agency officials are investigating what could have killed the starfish, which had been feeding on mussel beds.

They do not believe the deaths were linked to the recent storms because they were first reported to them last week.

They have also ruled out pollution or anything to do with climate change as the cause.

The agency said officials would investigate if the starfish were discarded by fishermen after the mussel beds were dredged.

A spokesman said: "Starfish congregate in vast numbers in some areas and feed on shellfish, so if the seabed was dredged then the starfish would inevitably have been caught in huge numbers."

Another theory is that the starfish had run out of mussels to eat and had moved into shallow water in the search for food.

The starfish bodies are not harmful and will probably be eaten by seagulls, the agency said.

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Thanks for Samson's post that alerted me on this similar event to mass death of Chek Jawa, though suspected not to be caused by the recent storms.