Shark Transplant into Sarangani Bay.

In Sarangani Bay we have probably as many different species of fish as any other place maybe in the whole world but one group of creatures which are noticeably missing are the Reef Sharks!

These Sharks used to be plentiful in the area but unfortunately they have always been easy to catch on Hook and Line or in Nets and even worse now, as the Fins are so valuable in countries which place great value on Shark Fin Soup, even the very babies are captured and the tiny fins removed!

As we dive in and around Sarangani Bay we do see Sharks, usually White Tip or Grey Reef Sharks but the locations of these we keep secret in order to protect them! On a Night Dive if you get lucky you might see the nocturnal types of Shark especially the Bamboo Shark but even these are few and far between as they get finned also!

We have been trying to locate Juvanile  Sharks for sometime now but all the people who say that they can supply them never seem to have any when we need them so we keep looking! Just a few weeks ago, my friend John Heitz was in Manila on a Business Trip when he got a contact for a Sharks Supplier which he followed up and lo and behold, the contact really had Juvenile Sharks so John made a deal with him to get them to General Santos where we would set them free in Sarangani Bay in the Tampuan Marine Park where they should have a good chance for survival! Better than in an Aquarium anyway!

The first batch of 10 Bamboo and 6 Black Tip Sharks arrived at Gen San Airport and many people I am sure thought that we were completely crazy as we opened each package to check the contents and they noticed that the cargo were Live Sharks. We loaded them into the vehicle and rushed them to the Marine Park where we already had holding pens ready for them in order for the Sharks to acclimatize before full release!

Once we arrived at the site, there were other divers waiting to assist us get the Sharks into the temporary accommodation and the transfer went very smoothly and within 30 minutes they were in the water again! This created a lot of interest for the local people who also probably thought that we were nuts but accepted the fact that we were trying to get the balance of nature correct once again by adding these top predators back onto the reef!

The Bamboo Sharks were released from their pen the very next day as they just huddled in one corner of the Holding Pen with no place to hide as they usually hide under corals during the day so their pen door was simply left open and the Sharks left sometime during the night to find more natural accommodation for themselves! The Black Tips we released after 4 days and as they left the confines of their pen they just swam away at a leisurely pace. We did not harass them during the release, just let them go their own way and let them do their own thing because you must remember that Small Sharks make good eating for large predators so we did not want to stress them out at all!

The second batch of 8 Black Tips and 2 Bamboo Sharks arrived by Air Cargo once again but this time we decided to release them directly into the Bay as we had noticed that the first ones had injuries on their noses from banging the sides of the Holding Pens. We loaded them onto the boat of  John and took them to the release point where again we were joined by other divers to assist and take pictures of the release. Again this went very well but 2 of the Black Tips needed a Bump Start as they were a bit stressed from their journey but at the end of the release operation they swam away so we hope that they will survive!

We have not seen any of the Juvenile Sharks since their release but we are sure that some if not all are still around and we do not really expect to see them very often as the still have to grow a bit bigger and be able to defend themselves before they show their faces in public too often!

We will be happy not to see these little guys again for a while! We hope that they can learn how to do what Sharks are supposed to do and when they are ready and street wise they will show themselves to us once again!

I just hope that the people who target Sharks for their fins do not try to get to them as these guys are evil and will take any shark no matter how small they are!

The total number of sharks released into Sarangani Bay to date is 62!

South Point Divers, Paradise!

If you drive about 45 km from General Santos City following the US Aid funded road South West you pass into Sarangani Province and once you leave the fishing village of Tinoto, you come to the home of South Point Divers! This is a reasonably new Dive Resort but has the potential to become World Class as the diving can be magnificent!

The Resort is owned by the Partridge Family, not that lot who used to sing on TV, this family, the father came here with Dole Philippines nearly 40 years ago, married a local lady, had 3 sons and decided to stay here after his work was over! They have owned the land for many years but now are developing it from their Private Sea Side Weekender into a good quality Resort for Divers and others to enjoy!

The main buildings, the Club House with Restaurant and Bar where you get a very good selection of different kinds of food and cold beer, essential after a good days diving!  The Guest Cottages have AC. there are Day Cottages and other Facilities and are all of these are situated on the Cliff  Top some 60 feet / 18 meters or so above sea level so you get a spectacular view of the mouth of Sarangani Bay and the Ocean beyond with its boat traffic and at times Dolphins and Pilot Whales which can be seen passing just a couple of hundred meters off shore!

At present, there are lots of projects going on as the owners are expanding and improving all the time! More Cottages are being constructed as well as a Conference Center! A Cliff  Top Swimming Pool is also getting near to being finished! WIFI Internet is also planned as the communications are quite poor in the area but an extension to the already existing Light House should give the extra height required in order to make getting the Internet a good possibility here!

Sarangani Bay in this area is 2,000 meters deep and just some 50 meters from the Cliffs the sea bed drops off down a wall or undersea Cliff to depths far below the limitations of Human Divers! The wall itself has been well decorated by Mother Nature with all kinds of Hard and Soft Corals, Sea Fans etc which in turn are inhabited by uncountable amounts of fish and other marine creatures! This area of water is also a Marine Park so there is no fishing in any form allowed so with good management the marine creatures should be allowed to grow and the whole area should provide a good and safe habitat for all kinds of occupants! Even now there are several resident Turtles, Napoleon Wrasse, Barracuda, Bump Head Parrot Fish and just recently we have released 26 Juvenile Black Tip and Bamboo Sharks into the Park where we hope that some of them will mature and stick around thus completing the Food Chain here! These Apex Predators are probably the most magnificent creatures to see in their natural habitat as they really belong there! Other creatures which can be seen are: Spotted Eagle Rays, Dog Tooth Tuna, Schools of Jacks, Rainbow Runners, Parrot Fish of many kinds and colors, Blue Lined Fusiliers and the full itinerary of Colorful Reef Fish! Even Whale Sharks and Manta Rays enter the bay at time but unfortunately not too often!

The diving here can be wonderful but the chances of having encounters with strong currents which can go in any direction, even up or down make it an area where novice divers must be supervised by a Dive Master or Instructor! There are great areas for non divers to Swim or Snorkel as there are very shallow corals which give a good view of the marine life to people who are not sure if they want to dive or not! Some people, once they have seen the natural beauty of a shallow reef easily get hooked and sign up with South Point to take a full training course! Divers can dive directly from the Resort or take the Boat to sites further along the wall or to areas where there are several Off Shore Reefs which can be reached in about 40 minutes or below and even the far side of the bay is less than one hour away if the weather is calm!

Everything is either in place or is being made ready to ensure the comfort of both divers and other guests at South Point! The Resort itself is already good but will be improved in stages! I am sure that the Resort itself will do very well indeed but there is a Black Cloud on the Horizon as there are plans being made to construct a large Coal Fired Power Station just to the West of the Resort and on land next to the Marine Park! Say what you want, there is no such thing as clean coal and it could cause environmental damage in the area but we all hope that this does not happen and are thinking for a bright future both for the Resort, the Marine Park and the area in general! We want to keep it CLEAN and GREEN and an inspirational so that the future generations can also enjoy the wonders of nature that we can see today!

Tubbataha Reef, A Divers Paradise!

Tubbataha Reef is the only World Heritage Site in the Philippines and is located in the Sulu Sea in between North Western Mindanao and Southern Palawan and it is a place which most Philippine Divers and indeed many Foreign Divers want to visit at least once in there life! If you get good weather then its a wonderful trip but with bad weather it can be a  horrific experience as many divers have found out! Luckily for me, the weather was perfect for my trip so it was money well spent!

Just 3 years ago myself and a group of divers from Gen San made the pilgrimage to Tubbataha but to get there from Gen San we had to first go to Cebu, spend the night there then fly on to Puerto Princessa in Palawan the next day where we were picked up at the airport by the Scuba World Crew who were the trip organizers! It was a short drive to our boat, the Oceanic Explorer which was a large ship with plenty room on board! We met the rest of the divers and crew and set off in the early evening for the overnight trip to the reef! Unfortunately for me there was a Formula 1 race that evening but they would not hold back the boat so I could watch it!

We woke up early the next morning and were greeted by the sight of Bird Island which was one of the rare areas of the reef which was actually visible above water! Our first dive was to be on a site called Shark Airport and on entering the water we immediately knew why the name was choose for the site as there were several sharks on the white sandy sea bed just a few meters below us! There was all kinds of marine life here and with this being only dive number 1 of 20 we were really excited as to what we would be seeing on the future dives! After this first dive we had breakfast and having eaten realized that we were not going to loose any weight on the trip as the food was good and plentiful on each meal!

I shared a cabin with John Heitz, my good friend from Gen San, I had the lower bunk and John had the top! Now, the ship was a Japanese model and unfortunately had ceilings and doors which were Japanese size so it was not long before John got the nick name of bump head as he had several bumps and bruises on his head from his collisions with different parts of the ship as we all did! We were doing 4 day dives and 1 night dive  so the schedule was quite hard for some as they did not dive very often and could not do every dive on the trip which made life for me and John even better as we had a family of 4 along with us in our chase boat who did not do every dive so our dive guide took us on some spectacular dives which we would have missed if we had been diving with the family! On 2 such dives, we were in strong current around 100 feet down on a ledge at the side of the wall and along side us just a few meters off the wall was a line of sharks! These sharks reminded my of competition team cyclists because every few seconds, the leading shark would flip itself over and move to the end of the line! A few seconds later the next leader would do the same and so on! We watched this action for a few minutes on 2 occasions and I believe it was a way for the sharks to save energy by taking it in turns to face the current!

Our daily routine was to wake up by 6am, have a snack and drink and then the  first dive! Have breakfast then have a 2nd dive, have a snack then have a 3rd dive, have lunch then have a 4th dive, have a snack then have the Night Dive, then have supper, relax and sleep! This routine was for 4 days so it was quite tough to keep to! All the time, we were very lucky as the weather was really kind to us, the water was flat calm and the sun was out so the conditions underwater were exceptional! Even the night dives were good as there was a moon to add light along with the beams from our flash lights and there was much to see! Some of the night time creatures included Sharks, Turtles, Moray Eels, Octopus, Lobster, Crabs, Squid, Sting Rays, and much much more! The eyes of the Sharks glow on a night time just like those of a cat when they are caught in a beam of light so it was a bit creepy to see them!

During our day dives what we saw was like you see on the National Geographic Channel on TV!  We saw Manta Rays, Eagle Rays, Giant Barracuda, Travelly’s, Spanish Maceral and Moray Eels! Napoleon Wrasse, Groupers, Sweetlips, Turtles! Schools of Jacks, Dog Tooth Tuna, Barracuda, Fusiliers and millions of reef fish of all shapes and colors! Man, we were in Scuba Heaven! On one single dive we saw more than 50 Green Turtles all relaxing on the reef, I had never seen anything like this before! Every dive we saw several different types of Sharks including White Tips, Black Tips, Grey Reef, Grey Nurse and even A Giant Hammerhead! There was just about every type of fish that you can think of in the area and even from the ship one day we saw a pod of Dolphins doing their thing and from the upper deck of the ship you could see many fish very clearly in the water below! Now, Tubbataha Reef is situated in deep water so gets a lot of seasonal weather which is very rough so the corals are good but not the greatest, this also can be said for the small reef fish as Nimo which is quite a rare sight on the reef where in most areas they are very common!

There is a detachment of Rangers stationed on a permanent structure on one area of the reef but they are far too few to patrol the whole area which covers now some 968 Sq Km and in bad weather they cannot move in their small craft so Poachers especially from China and Taiwan do get in and catch lots of Fish, Sharks and Turtles illegally but even when these people are captured they are usually released as a good will gesture to their home country!

The whole of our trip was fantastic and after the last night dive the drinks came out and we celebrated our success! Most of us had not taken any drink since we left port as we did not want to risk missing any dives because of drink! The trip itself was good in one way and not good in another because now I was spoiled and if I were to go back once more I could easily be disappointed after seeing so many wonderful things on such a great experience, maybe on a future trip I would not see so much! I took lots of Pictures but unfortunately towards the end of the diving my Digital Camera flooded and died when the casing sprang a leak, sorry for me! I will definitely recommend Tubbataha to any competent diver but the weather must be good! I know several divers who have horror stories when their chase boats sank and gear was lost, engines failed in bad weather, some only had 1 or 2 dives when they had to return to port because of bad weather etc!

I have no complaints at all about the whole area and I really hope that the Government can do more to protect this important reef from poachers and keep it as a major breeding ground and habitat for many of the worlds Magnificent Marine Creature ensuring that they will be around in the future for others to see and enjoy!

One of the Scuba World Crew had been to Tubbataha on 8 occasions remarked that ours was the best trip he had been on! Were we lucky or what?

Maharlika Beach Resort and Great Dive Spot!

In late 1997 I was a Founder and the President of the Lifeguard Association of General Santos City but that’s a future article! As a diver, someone gave me the idea to do check out dives in the waters fronting the recreational beaches to check for under water hazards which could be dangerous to customers! To me, this sounded like an interesting idea so I made my plans not only to check out what was under the water but to make sketch maps also! Now, as a diver I had never bothered to dive in this area before everyone said to me that it was no good and a waste of time diving there as there was nothing of interest to see but during the next few days I was amazed at the corals and marine life that I discovered all along that stretch of beach front! They were so wrong!

There is a row of Beach Resorts in the Bawing Area in one line along the beach starting with, Tropicana, Maharlika 1 and 2, Rajah, Dupalco and Family, the last two had nothing of interest under water but the first four had plenty! In my opinion, the best of the three beaches was and still is Maharlika 1!

There are two Beach Resorts, Maharlika 1 and 2 which are owned by two Muslim Brother! Maharlika 1 in my opinion is the best as the facilities are better! There are more than 200 day cottages and a small store, they do not sell alcohol but just outside the gates are probably 10 small stores all selling the local booze! On the beach are always plenty of local people trying to make a living by selling things to customers like watches, sun glasses, DVDs, nuts, ice cream, hammocks, cheap jewelry and cultured pearls, fresh fish and squid, even full roast pigs are for sale per KG at times! Basically if it can be carried then it can be sold! There used to be at least 10 Karaoke Machines all close together but luckily now they have all broken down so the beach stays quiet one again! Sometimes my preyers do get answered!

There is an area where the two Beach Resorts join and at low tide much of this are is out of the water and people always go there to turn over the rocks to find small crabs and shell fish! For some reason only known to themselves, the DENR Region 12 have taken a 1.2 Hectare piece of this exposed beach and made it a Marine Reserve and no Take Zone! There are signs stating that the area is protected but unfortualy nobody is there to enforce this law so the people still go there by the hundreds to gather shellfish!

Now, you might say, what is so special about this beach as so far it sounds just like any normal local beach but on this beach, just about 20 meters from the high tide mark there is a fresh water swimming pool which covers about 4,000 square meters and it is fed by a high flow natural spring! The water is much cooler than the ocean and it is only about 4 feet deep so its a pretty safe swimming area for most people! This pool is drained and cleaned every Friday and only takes about 4 to 6 hours to fill up again so it shows how much water is flowing through here!

At this time, I have done more than 1,000 Scuba Dives here as this place is my preferred Dive Training Site as I can do the confined water training in the pool if necessary and then into the ocean for the main diving practice! At the end of the Ocean dives we can just jump into the fresh water pool nce again with all our gear to both swill the salt water off of ourselves and also off our equipment! During the week the beach is usually quiet but on a weekend it can get very busy and on public holidays its total chaos as every cottage will be full of people! Now its very strange that all these people travel for many miles to get to the beach packed into trucks like sardines but most do not swim or anything, they just go into the cottage, eat, drink, sleep and go home! If that is the way that they enjoy themselves then good luck to them!

Now the diving is excellent as there is so much variation of things to see, there are both hard and soft corals which make great habitat for the marine creatures, there is sea grass where the Sea Horses, leaf Fish and Pipe Fish can easily blend in, there are sandy areas where the weird sand dwelling creatures like Snake Eels and Gobi’s live, Green Turtles are not uncommon and a resident shoal of Yellow Tail Barracuda are always present! Lion, Puffer, Surgeon Fish are plenty along with every-one’s favorite Nimo the Clown Fish who can be found in many colors!

A lot of divers, especially under water photographers like this area for Macro Photography which in simple terms means taking pictures of small creatures like Shrimps, Crabs, Snails and Sea Slugs (Nudibranchs) and anything else tiny that they can find! There are also some extremely rare creatures like the Weedy Scorpion Fish which looks like a weed and the Frog Fish which can swallow prey equal to its own body size, Bamboo Sharks which are small nocturnal hunters of shell fish can sometimes be seen on Night Dives! To date, no Underwater Photographer has gone away upset at not seeing good and interesting things! There is an excellent area for Snorkeling where the tops of the corals are just about 4 feet below the water surface but it is very rare to see anyone in this area as people do not know about it and do not ask!

All along this stretch of beach we have deployed over 2,000 Artificial Reef Domes, I will tell you about this very successful project in a later article! The first of these Domes were deployed at Maharlika!

This beach area could be really good if it was developed correctly as all the natural amenities are in place such as good access from the main road. The power supply is almost constant. There is an  abundant supply of fresh water in the form of a spring! Great Diving and Snorkeling areas, even the sand on the beach is good even though its not white! Unfortunately, to attract tourists does not seem to be a priority for the government who want more business investment which is also good for the area!

I for one really hope that areas such as Maharlika and in fact the whole streach of beach can be preserved and improved for the future but unfortunatly big business is getting closer all the time so I am very afraid it all might dissappear! London Beach has already been sold for a Bio Fuel Depot and industry is movin in all the time! It will be a great shame if the local population has no place to swim because the rich people own all the beaches!

The Sarangani Bay 5,000 Artificial Reef Dome Project!

In early April 2005, Myself and my American friend John Heitz were having a couple of beers at my Cambridge Farm Bar after a day of diving! My bar is a place where many great ideas are born especially after a bit of worship to our favorite saint, San Miguel! During our dives we had seen all kinds of degradation to our local coral reefs both man made and natural but the organizations who were supposed to take care of such problems were doing nothing so me and John, on the spot, decided that if we wanted anything to by done to improve our local coral reefs then we would have to be the ones to initiate it! After a few more beers, the idea of the Reef Dome Project was born!

Over the next couple of weeks we came up with several designs of Dome Shapes and Sizes, all made with locally available materials in order to keep costs to a minimum. The buckets which were to act as the casting forms were purchased from the Gen San Fish Port, others were made up by the local Tire Repairing Vulcanizers, steel, sand, gravel and cement were all locally purchased locally so no extra expense added there! As form oil was so expensive we bought used vegetable oil from Jollibee to stop the concrete sticking to the forms! My two old laborers were now the dome construction crew and the project construction site was Cambridge Farm Hotel! Now, everything was in place and the project began!

The first few domes were deployed on 17th April 2005 in the waters fronting Maharlika Beach Resort! This was a learning curve for us as we had built the domes but had never rolled them into the water before but all went well and the domes, as we hoped were easily moved by a single diver! If we decided to pile them in pyramids as we did later in the project we could usually manage this with 2 divers! Now that we had deployed the initial domes and we could see that it was quite feasible to easily deploy more, we went into full production constructing the domes and it was not long before we had many sponsors willing to assist in this worthy project! On many occasions groups who sponsored the domes made the deployment day as a family social event with parties on the beach, others just donated money, even the Padi, Project Aware Foundation made a substantial donation so the project was really flying so we decided that the number of 5,000 domes would be required to complete the project and as you can probably understand, that at this early stage, we still had a very long way to go! The number 5,000 was just picked from the air!

After about 3 weeks we were inspecting the first domes that we had deployed and we were very surprised to find life starting to take hold in the form of small marine worms, tiny barnacles, green algea and other minute creatures! We were kind of shocked with this growth as we were thinking that it would be months or even years before anything really happened growth wise! We also noticed that small Damsel Fish had staked a claim to each dome as their home and would defend them vigorously even from creatures the size of divers, they were quite fearless and we got hit on numerous occasions! The more we studied the domes the more we got interested in how life developed on them! There were many broken an uprooted corals all around the reef so we decided to try to transplant some onto the domes just to see how they would react! Some were not successful and did not survive but many did especially the soft corals so we made it a point in future deployments to gather loose corals and attach them to the domes in order to kick start the growth!

The more domes we deployed, the more we learned about how long it took different kinds of life to take hold and grow! Barnacles were very fast growers but were also a food source for Parrot Fish etc! The  algae was food for the grazing creatures like Surgeon Fish! Some coral species took hold and grew very quickly while some of the harder corals take a much longer time to show themselves but in time, everything was growing well and new coral reefs were being created in different areas of Sarangani Bay and beyond! With this new supply of marine accommodation came the immigrants, fish of all kinds moved in, Shell Fish, Octopus and Crustaceans, Cucumbers and Urchins, predators like Lion Fish, Scorpion fish and Moray Eels, all forms of live were now in resident, these new reefs even started having some form of order to their society! To say that we were extremely elated was an understatement! We were two very happy people and were really astonished that our little project was creating so much improvement to the Marine Environment!

Like many projects, ours was not all plain sailing as we had our delays! Most were caused by bad weather which we could do nothing about, sometimes the local divers were not available to assist in deploying the domes and some delays were caused when the construction funds were a bit low but luckily for us, the Gen San City Government did not slow us down with Bureaucrats and we were left alone to continue where and when we wished to go! On one memorable occasion, we were taking domes out to an off shore reef on John’s Boat when the engine stopped! The operator looked into the engine compartment and it was flooded, the boat was sinking! Immediately we threw all the domes over the side into on deep water, bailed out the water from the boat and drifted into shore at Maharlika beach! The boat was saved but 17 domes were lost to the deep!

All in all, it took us 40 months of hard work to get 5,001 Domes deployed and on 29th August 2008 we finished the project and relaxed! It was a hard struggle all the way through but we had the determination to succeed! We have been asked to continue with the project but I think that we have done our part in assisting the Marine Environment with its recovery so I hope that others will take over and continue with similar types of projects!

There will be more information about this project but this will be in the form of other articles! If we are to help to restore what Man and Nature has helped to destroy, we have proved that with a little bit of determination, good things can be achieved without too much expense! For the 5,001 Domes, our total expenditure was just P942,329.00 which was about $21,000.00! Each dome cost only p200.00 or $4.20! Already another organization is doing a project to deploy 500 Domes in Sarangani Bay and there is interest from other areas of the country so with a bit of luck, the local coral reefs might once again be an impressive part of nature and give the marine creatures a more natural habitat than they have now in a lot of areas! If we allow the reefs to disappear then the whole marine ecosystem will collapse and that can only be a disaster for mankind so I sincerely hope that our project has played a small part in securing a better and safer future for the inhabitants living in the under the sea realm!

More pictures and details about the Coral Development on the Reef Domes will be detailed in future articles!

The Shame of the Philippines, Shark Slaughter!

Having spent many hours diving under water and seeing what wonders lie below the Surface of the Ocean I am always very impressed when I encounter Sharks, the number 1 Apex Predator in its natural environment! They are such graceful creatures as they move seemingly effortlessly across the reef hunting for prey! We humans on the other hand must look very stupid and clumsy to them as we are all weird shapes and have bits dangling and sticking out and are constantly blowing bubbles! The Sharks and other Marine Creatures must really look upon us with amusement!

Without the many species of Shark to control other marine populations, the whole Marine Ec-osystem would fall into chaos as has happened in some areas of the world already! When the infamous book and movie Jaws by Peter Benchley first came out in the 1970’s it managed to cause a world panic and the aftermath of which was the wholesale slaughter of Millions of  Sharks in every corner of the world and unfortunately, this trend still continues until today with leading Marine Experts estimating that up to 100 million Sharks are killed each year, a lot of these Sharks are caught alive, have their fins removed and then are dumped back unceremoniously into the Ocean still alive only to suffer a very slow and probably painful death!

In Australia, the Great White and Tiger Sharks were mostly killed with the result that the Seal Populations which were their main food were allowed to expand enormously just because there were no predators to keep the numbers in check and with this type of Unbalanced Population Explosion the local fish stocks came under great pressure and local fishermen lost their lively hood as a consequence! Sport fishing for Sharks is also a very big business world wide!

Because of the enormous market for Shark Fins, all around the globe Sharks are being hunted to near extinction in many areas! Sharks are very slow breeders with many species not becoming mature or able to breed until the age of around 20 years old and even then most sharks will only deliver between 1 and 20 young at a time! The Sand Tiger Shark gives birth to only 1 offspring at a time because while still in the womb the strongest pup will kill and eat the rest of it siblings and will be born fully functional like the mother only smaller! Some Sharks have live birth while others deposit egg cases on the sea bed!

As I was saying earlier, it is always a thrill to see Sharks in their natural habitat doing what sharks do! Unfortunately now, it is much more common to sea dead Sharks on the back of a truck or on sale by the roadside or in some market place! It is very rare nowadays also that you will see the complete Shark because usually they have already had their fins removed! Even the smallest of the juvenile sharks are treated this way, size or age means nothing to the local fishermen as it is a means to put food on the table for his family! Most fishermen do not target Sharks but do take them as bi-catch, there is no catch and release system in the Philippines!

There are some groups of fishermen who do actually target sharks by using multiple hooked long lines which are strung out over a long distance and are specially designed to catch Sharks! unfortunately these are the type of people who give fishermen a bad name because in order to find a good bait to put on their hooks to attract the Sharks they Harpoon Dolphins, cut them up and use them as the bait which to say the least is an especially unforgivable method of fishing which only the most heartless of people are capable of doing in order to fish!

The Philippine Government is talking of passing a bill to stop this stupid kind of slaughter by banning the landing of Sharks and Rays in the Philippines and also banning the use and sale of Shark Products including Shark Fin Soup any where in the country! Maybe if the Politicians can stop squabbling between themselves for a while then this bill might be made into a law!

If Sharks are allowed to be slaughtered in the numbers that they are today then I am very sure that the order in the Marine Ecosystem will collapse and the state of the Oceans will suffer damage leading to a disaster which not even Man and Mother Nature will be able to repair so its time to act now and find ways to stop the stupidity and stop this unnecessary Slaughter of such an important member of the Marine World! Lets hope that it is not already too late!

An easy way to show your disgust at such barbaric practices is very simple, if you go to a restaurant which has Shark Fin Soup or other Shark Products on the menu, inform the management that you disagree with this practice and walk out and find another place to eat! It might do some good, you will never know until you try!

Lion Beach, a Scuba Success Story!

The City of General Santos has its shoreline with Sarangani Bay to the south of the City and for some years now there has been a big push to try to return this area from a Haven for Squatters into a more habitable and scenic area for the “Generals” (this is the nick name for the good people of Gen San) to enjoy!

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Years ago, Lion Beach, now renamed Queen Tuna Park was the main swimming and relaxation area for the City and some older people still tell stories about playing with newly hatched Turtles on the beach and Dolphins being a regular site off shore there! Unfortunately as the City developed, all that changed as the Fishing Industry expanded causing problems on this once peaceful area of shoreline! The Tuna and other Fishing Vessels started landing their catch on Lion Beach in large quantities as it was close to the main wet market for the City, with this new trade, the market expanded in order to deal with the increasing volume of fish! As more fish were landed, the job hunting people from all over the area moved in and constructed their Squatter Houses all along this stretch of shore! Over the years the area became terrible as many fish were gutted and cleaned and the offal dumped into the water before the fish were carried to the market, everything else imaginable was dumped into the waters of the bay! The Squatters did not have any bathrooms in their homes so the waters of the bay were their toilets also! To say the least, these waters could only be described as a bio hazard to human life! Things were pretty disgusting in and around the whole area and soon reached a stage where the waters were so polluted that action had to be taken to clean up the place!

With Japanese Funding, a new Fish Port Complex was opened a few miles out of the City which immediately removed a lot of Strain from both the Lion Beach Area and the Environment! The City then moved in and cleared out a large area of the Squatter Population and some areas of Illegal Market Structures were also removed giving the waters of the Bay a chance to clean up as the tides dispersed much of the pollution naturally!

Myself and a small group of divers once had the very unpleasant task of Finding and Removing the body of a young boy who drowned off Lion Beach at the peak time of the Squatters! The visibility was Zero within the polluted area of water and we had to search by feeling along the sea bed to locate the body, You cannot even imagine what we were feeling through with our hands as we searched, maybe it was better that we could not see what we were feeling and touching as that might have scared the living daylights out of us! The body was located on day 2 of the search and it took us another week cleaning and servicing our selves and our scuba gear as it was in a really horrible condition! I was outside the Colombo for that period until my wife declared me Bio Hazard Free again!

About 5 years ago, myself and 2 other divers were asked to dive in the now much cleaner waters off Lion Beach to check on the fish stocks! This we did and in a 1 hour dive we saw only 3 fish! That was not a real surprising after the abuse that the area was still recovering from! To make the fish population increase, Mother Nature required some assistance from man and received it in the form of Artificial Reef Domes!

In April 2005, we started the  Sarangani Bay 5,000 Reef Dome Project where a group of interested divers constructed and deployed our Reef Domes into areas of the Bay and beyond! Lion Beach was a natural area for such a deployment as the area really needed assistance and also several groups who sponsored the construction costs of the domes wanted the deployment at Lion Beach as it was easy to get too! As the deployments continued over the next 40 months, over 700 Domes were deployed at Lion Beach and the fish population expanded dramatically! The waters off Lion Beach will never be Crystal Clear as silt from the  local rivers is always abundant so the water is usually a bit cloudy but only yesterday we had a check up dive and noticed that the domes were getting more coral growth on them and the fish population had also increased from zero to now thousands of fish and I saw a fish which I had not seen there before, a Juvenile Bat Fish bringing the total different Fish types to there 43 that I had seen off Lion Beach!

There are Large schools of Surgeon, Parrot and Titan Trigger Fish, Nimo and his pals are there, many different types of colorful coral fish including the flamboyant but poisonous Lion Fish, also Octopus and Shell Fish! With the Coral Growth being steady and the fish population on the increase all is looking good for this area which only a few short years ago was nothing more than a septic tank devoid of life! The Lion Beach Area should be respected and protected by the City but unfortunately this is not the case!

Every night the local fishermen move in and set their nets to try to harvest this new found bounty, big or small, they take it anyway! As we dive, one job always is to remove pieces of fishing net and line off of the domes because as more corals grow the more the nets get snagged so the fishermen have to pull their nets free sometimes damaging the nets, other times the corals lose and are broken off from the domes! We have asked the City to declare this small area  a no fishing zone and make it a Sanctuary for Marine Life Protection because just within 100 meters on the shore next to Lion Beach there is a Barangay Office with Police and several other Government Departments on Lion Beach itself! Unfortunately, the interest to protect the area does not seem to be much of an important issue at this stage in time! This is very unfortunate but I will keep on Petitioning the Government to protect this important area and if I still have no success then I will try with the new government people after the elections next year! I can only try my best! If the City cannot Protect this small area of waterfront within the City itself then there is no chance of protecting any place else within the City Boundaries!

As I and many others see it, the recovery of Lion Beach both top side and under water is a great success and really shows what can be done when a group of friends get together and decide to do something to help restore the balance of nature and improve the environment for our future generation to actually see in reality rather than from the archives of National Geographic!

The full story of the Sarangani Bay 5,000 Reef Dome Project will be another story!

The Mystery Ship of Sarangani Province!

At the beginning of July this year I received a phone call from the Philippine Coast Guard in Manila asking if I had an Under Water Camera that they could borrow so that they could take pictures of the grounded ship! I told them that mine was dead but gave them the name of a friend of mine who had the required equipment, for rent, not borrow! I never gave this problem another thought until I received word that a Coastal Tanker had run itself aground on Bakud Reef just 7 km off shore from Kiamba Town in Sarangani Province! I knew this reef very well as I had had many dives on it over the years! We decided to go and see what was happening but before we could get there, the ship had been pulled free and it was said to have been towed away by 2 Tug Boats to Davao City for inspection and repair!

On the 15th July we decided to go and see what damage the reef top had sustained but we knew what ever it was it would not be too bad as the reef top had been damaged before by stupid people fishing with explosives and using poisons in order to catch fish! Now the reef was in recovery mode but because of strong currents, the corals take a long time to establish themselves in the shallow waters on the top of the reef! We rented a local fishing boat from Kiamba and took the short journey out to the reef, the weather was good so it was no problem! Once on the reef, we asked some local fishermen who were fishing sensibly using hook and line where the ship had got stuck and they pointed us to the exact spot where this incident took place!

Once we dropped into the water, the visibility was good and we could see the damage to the top of the reef! There was a groove or channel some 100 meters long, about 40 meters wide at the widest point and it was 10 meters deep at the deepest point from sea level! The top of the reef was only 7 meters deep below sea level so the ship had cut a groove below the reef top some 3 meters deep! The damage to coral was only small as this area of the reef had not recovered too well but there were big boulders which were broken out of the old coral rock base at the reef top! In among the debris of rock were bits of the ship which were nothing more than rusty pieces that once were steel about 10mm thick! With this much rust falling off of this ship it makes me wonder just how sea worthy the ship really is! Having had a good look around, we could not really see anything near what could be describes as a Marine Disaster so we took a few pictures and had a fun dive on another part of the reef, saw some big fish and a couple of Turtles then went back into shore!

Once we had unloaded our Scuba Gear and were all packed up for our return to Gen San we asked the local fishermen details about the ship! The name was the Golden Akeni, it was a small coastal type tanker and they said its cargo was Animal Fat bound for Australia? This cargo did not seem true at all and from what we had seen, this rust bucket of a ship would not have been able to make such a journey! I contacted the Coast Guard in Manila and all that they could confirm was the name! The local fishermen also stated that the Ships Owners had paid a sum of money to the Kiamba Town Government to cover any costs of the damage to the Reef Top! to me, things were going too fast and cover up was in the wind!

I contacted the Coast Guard again but still the only thing that they would tell me was the name of the ship! They could not or would not tell me the name of the Ships Owners, What was its cargo, where was it coming from and where was it going, basically they told me nothing! I contacted one of the Gen San Harbor Pilots, he said he knew nothing of this ship! nobody seems to know anything about its existence! I am sure that Agatha Christie could make a very interesting story about such a mystery!

In a small place like this you would think that it would be impossible to keep anything secret as things are usually well published even before the events happen but in this case, not a word is being said, nothing was mentioned on any news media, usually if a tricycle has an accident it gets into the news but when a ship runs aground and there is not a mention makes me think that whatever this ship was doing, it was not what could be called legal and powerful people are involved! Usually after a Marine Accident all kinds of people including the Coast Guard, Ships Owners, Ships Insurers and others are supposed to investigate such incidents but again in this case nothing happened!

We were very lucky in this instance as the ship did not cause any real damage to the reef so we must be thankful for that! There was no spillage of the contents of the ship or fuel, once again lady luck was on our side! With a ship being able to hit a large shallow reef which is well marked on the Marine Navigation Charts tells me that the crew of this ship were not local, maybe not even Philippino!

There is a similar very shallow Reef called Takut Cabo just 300 meters from the Petron Fuel Depot Pier in Bawing, Gen San, we are trying to get the city to put good and highly visible marker buoys on this reef to warn shipping of its existence but so far, no action has been taken! I truly hope that Takut Cabo does not give me a reason to write up a similar incident in the future!

In my humble opinion there is no excuse with modern day navigation aids for any ship to run aground especially on areas which are plotted on the charts! Ships Crew and Owners who commit such mistakes  should be prosecuted and made to pay for their stupidity! Who Ever They Are!

The Crown of Thorns Sea Star, Coral Killer!

I am sure that in this day and age most educated people around the globe know or have least heard of the terrible depletion of the worlds Coral Reefs and the reasons that the leading marine scientists blame for the problems!

Global warming gets all the blame for everything nowadays but in reality it should not! Many issues are to blame for the problem of Coral Death and man himself does have a part to play but also cannot be totally to blame!

Some of the causes are the work of man such as: Illegal dumping of Chemical and Toxic Waste being dumped at sea! Agricultural Pesticides and Fertilizer being washed from the farms into the Rivers and to the Oceans! Untreated Sewage being dumped directly into the Rivers and Oceans! Household Garbage including Cleaning Chemicals and Plastics being dumped on the shores! Oil Spills from Maritime Disasters and many more Human Interactions all contribute to the general degradation of the water quality which in turn affect the all creatures which live in the Oceans including some of the more fragile species, the Corals!

Man is always easy to blame but we cannot hold him completely guilty as there is another component which can create and cause immense amounts of destruction and that is Mother Nature Herself! She can be blamed for Typhoons, Cyclones or Hurricanes, it depends where you live as to what name you choose to call these horrific storms, She can smash a coral reef to pieces in a very short time by slamming flotsam such as fallen trees and other objects directly onto the reefs! Yes, she is mean when she wants to be (just like my sister) but still has an evil trick up her sleeve because when all the weather is quiet and peaceful, lurking in the depths are some of the most efficient coral killers in the Ocean, The Crown of Thorns Sea Stars!

Most people will have never seen or heard anything about the Crown of  Thorns as it is seldom seen except by Scuba Divers and Fishermen but it is a very great threat to many kinds of coral species! In Australia, on the Great Barrier Reef they discovered this problem many years ago and to date they still have not found the reason for the sudden outbreaks of them and more so they have not found any efficient method of dealing with the problem!

The Crown of Thorns is a multi-legged Sea Star which grows to the size of a dinner plate, can be different colors from Green to Purple and it feeds on the corals by turning its stomach inside out in order to dissolve and devour the helpless coral polyps! So far so good but the description so far sounds like any simple Star Fish but the Crown of Thorns as the name suggests still has a Wicked Defense Strategy as each of its spines is like a Hypodermic Needle loaded with a very Toxic Venom and when man comes in contact with this pain is immediate and the wounds can take a long time to heal as I found out some years ago when our group of divers were collecting a group of Crown of Thorns from a shallow reef! We all had sacks to collect them in but one diver turned around and the current caught his sack and it hit me on the calf muscle and I was stung several times, Ouch said I, or something to that effect, to cut a long story short, one puncture wound would not stop weeping fluid for about 2 months and about 10 thousand peso’s later, after a further month the wound healed but has left a nice depression in my leg to remind me of that day!

The different ways to deal with them start with the simplest method which is to collect them in sacks , baskets or string them in Tuna Fishing Line like a Necklace and get them out of the water as this is the way to kill them as they are 80% water, on land they dehydrate and die! Sodium Bi sulfate can be injected into them under water and this will kill them but a specialized injection system is required! Whichever method is to be used, the diver should be extremely careful and try not to get injured by the stings! If you do get stung we have found out from experience that if you squeeze the wound straight away under water until you get as much of the venom as possible out of your body then on land soak the wound in hot water there is a good chance that you will not be very badly hurt! Some people have chopped them up and left them in the water but unfortunately the have a special power which gives them the ability to grow a complete new creature from each piece, just like the Terminator!  There are natural predators to deal with these creatures but the Triton Shell which eats them is also a great delicacy for fishermen and the large Groupers and Wrasse have been nearly fished out in many areas!

Unfortunately, when a plague of Crown of Thorns appear they should be removed from the water as quickly as possible but if the government gets involved there is a maze of paperwork to get through before any funds can be issued in order to stop the problem so its usually up to the private sector to attack the problem first! Some years ago, there was a huge outbreak near Glan at the tip of Sarangani Bay, in order to stop the problem, the Rotary Club of Metro Dadiangas along with a Sister Club from overseas raised funds to pay the local fishermen 1 x KG of rice for every 20 Crown of Thorns they removed! For every 5 KG of rice they also got 1 can of fish! At the end of the project, 126,000 Crown of Thorns had been removed and the plague was at an end! To get the local fishermen to remove them is the cheapest and most efficient way to deal with these creatures that we have discovered to date!

Now, on every dive, some divers carry a sack or a piece of Tuna Line in case they see any Crown of Thorns on their dive, if they see any then they remove them! There numbers can be controlled as long as you stay on top of the problem, its no use to plan ahead if there is a plague in your area, you must act immediately as each on can eat around 1 square meter of coral per week so you can imagine what kind of damage to a reef 500 can cause if left unchecked! If you could eat them then they would not be a problem but to date I have not discovered any one who can find any use for them!

When we remove them from the water they are just left to dry out in the sun and then buried but they can be dug into the ground as a fertilizer! As long as there are plenty of them then we will keep on catching them! It is nice to think that one day we will have won the battle with the Crown of Thorns but to be honest, I think that such an idea is just a dream and they will always be around! Lets hope not!

(Note) Many Crown of Thorns WERE killed during the taking of the Pictures!