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Sixty
three hours after leaving London we arrived on the beach at
Hoga Island, South East Sulawesi, Indonesia.
We were there as part of a group of volunteers to assist Operation
Wallacea gather photographic and scientific data on the reefs
around Hoga Island, part of the Tukangbesi island group known
locally as 'WAKATOBI'. Operation Wallacea was established
in 1995 to map the wild-life in 7500 square kms of remote
rain-forest and survey the coral and fish in 600km of reefs
in this remote and least-visited province of Indonesia.
The
base on Hoga was a large wooden house originally built by
the Japanese, left to decay, then refurbished and turned into
living quarters, a dive centre and laboratory by Wallacea
personnel. The site was managed by Wallacea staff and local
Indonesians did the cooking, tank filling, boat handling etc.
The marine scientific work was supervised by marine biologist
Monica Sullivan with support from professional photographer
Adam Powell who processed films and copied slides for both
their data base and the volunteers. Other volunteers, on longer
stays, assisted with the diving and surveying as part of their
dive master training which was an additional benefit for those
wishing to up-grade their PADI qualifications. We were there
for two-weeks, giving us ten days' diving, three boat dives
a day, on the reefs, pinnacles, and ridges around Hoga.
The
plan was to dive with a purpose on two of the dives, then
'free' dive the other one as we wished. In practice this was
far less formal because on most dives we were free to photograph
as we pleased.
The
daily dives were punctuated by informal lectures on the subjects
we were there to photograph and detail on the log sheets provided.
The main thrust of the work was Tunicates (Sea squirts), Sponges
and most fish with particular emphasis on Butterfly fish.
We were also keeping an eye out for nudibranches, which varied
in size from 5mm to 150mm in length.
At
least one nuclibranch found during our stay was a newly discovered
species now awaiting verification. We also discovered a star-f
ish which could not be identif ied on site.
The
lectures were presented by Monica Sullivan on secondment from
Sligo University, Ireland. Monica had an infectious enthusiasm
for all marine life with a gift for imparting knowledge. The
lectures opened our eyes to the enormous quantity and variation
of creatures ( and their interrelationships) on the reefs,
enabling us to identify a wide variety of subjects for our
photography and data collection.
Sea
snakes were an occasional surprise to us all. This poor-sighted
creature, or so we were told, with a bite which would kill,
made us all treat its presence with some care. Sometimes they
would appear around the legs or over the shoulder and make
you draw a deep breath on the DV as they glided by.
The
main reef was a steep wall extending for about a mile from
our base along the side of the island, although only about
a quarter of the reef had been dived to any extent. Being
vertical it was in pristine condition with hardly a place
to put a 'steadying' finger if you wanted a closer look. Pinnacles
and ridges extended from five to forty metres covered with
gorgonians, barrel sponges, massive, sub-massive and branching
corals, with folios and encrusting corals providing an infinite
variety of wide-angle photographic subjects,
The
weather was not so kind to us, with warm rain every day at
a time when it should have been the dry season. Who said El
Nino? The weather did have some effect on our choice of lenses
because of the lack of sunlight on most dives, but the reefs
were packed with macro subjects and there was always an infinite
number from which to choose.
Adam
Powell, the resident photographer, was a delight to dive with
because of his knowledge of the reef creatures to be found
amongst the coral, sponges and tunicates, many of which we
had never seen before. The water temperature was 30 degrees
with an occasional colder upwelling, but a lycra or a 3 mm
neoprene wet-suit was adequate protection.
The
group of sixteen volunteers was made up from five of our club
members (four photographers and one video person), with the
balance of divers as data collectors.
We
all filled in subject survey forms and provided photos and
samples of selected subjects collected during the day for
logging and scrutiny under the microscope. Live subjects were
returned to the sea on a subsequent dive.
Most of the survey work took about half a dive, leaving us
free to carry on taking pictures for the rest of the dive,
but there was no pressure to surface if you still had airand
film left.
The
food, accommodation, timing and travel was Indonesian style,
so there was a larger than usual culture shock once we reached
Singapore and faced our first (six hour) flight delay - but
that's half the fun of going a third of the way around the
world to join the mosquitoes in a strange land!
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