Seahorses for Traditional Chinese Medicine

Site feed: Atom/RSS

According to the "Endangered Species Handbook" (read the full article here), 20 Million seahorses are caught annually from our oceans in order to satisfy the market for Traditional Chinese Medicine. A study conducted from 1993 to 1995 by Biologist Amanda Vincent revealed, not surprisingly, China as the biggest market for dried seahorses followed by Taiwan and Singapore.

I have seen some dead seahorses brought back from the Philippines by relatives who did not know any better and bought them as souvenirs. During my recent trip to Sipadan/Mabul in Sabah, I decided to visit the local market at Semporna and found dried seahorses and pipefishes sold there. The sight was disturbing.

If you're a diver, just take pictures and then leave them alone.

If you're considering buying them for their medicinal properties, I'm sure there are many other alternatives you can try.

The same goes for getting them for souvenirs. Get those eco-friendly ones, plenty of them to choose during your vacation.

Pulau Tenggol in Wide Angle

Site feed: Atom/RSS

I spent many September days in a Komuter train, commuting between Seremban and KL, while waiting for my car to be repaired after a nasty accident recently.

I'm so glad I got my new MacBook Pro 13" with it's 8-hour battery stamina to keep me company on those days. Better yet, the 1 1/2 hour commute gave me plenty of time to learn to use Adobe Lightroom 2 (LR) for simple photo editing. I have to say, LR is amazing! Nowadays, I use Photoshop only for those pictures that need serious editing. For most of the recent pictures I took, LR is all I need.

During my August dive trip to Tenggol Island, visibility was around 20 meters or more at many dives sites such as Tokong Timur, Moonraker and Amazing Grace. Thus, I had the opportunity to get many nice shots that require very little post-processing. All the shots below requires very minimal editing, all done in LR and all done during my Komuter trips. Enjoy.

Whaleshark in Pulau Tenggol, Aug09

Site feed: Atom/RSS

Tenggol is a small island (only about 3km in length) about 30 minutes by boat from Dungun, Terengganu. Since July this year, divers have reported consistent sightings of four Whalesharks (Rhincodon typus) around the island and a few Manta rays (Manta birostris) too. Almost every weekend the three resorts on the island were packed with divers hoping to see these creatures.

In my twelve years of diving, I have never seen a Whaleshark. Manta yes, Thresher shark yes but not this shark, the largest of all fish species. I had three PADI Open Water Diver and a Rescue Diver students to complete their certification last August 2009 and managed to, err, gently persuade them to follow me to Tenggol. We got to the island and quickly got through the training dives, assisted by four of my Divemaster trainees. Then, it was time to set up my trusty ol' Nikon D70 in its underwater casing and out to catch a glimpse of the shark. I cannot even remember when was the last time I went out diving feeling very nervous and very excited at the same time. The last time was probably during my very first Open Water experience with Ejam Shair, my PADI instructor that time. Why? Because just about every diver I know have already seen the Whaleshark in Tenggol and have bragged so much about it and there I was, making my 600th dive or so and still have not met this famous filter feeder. I hate to admit it but I was nervous, in a good way somewhat.

Azrul of Discovery Divers led the dive at Teluk Nakhoda. We went in, head out into the greenish, plankton-filled water and kept our depth around 15 meters or so. Visibility was just about 5 to 7 meters and there was nothing to see. We just followed Azrul and kept looking left, right, above and under for the guy. My D70 was set on Aperture-priority @ F/5.6, the Ikelite DS125 strobe already fully charged and on standby and my fingers never left the shutter button. We continued swimming, everybody filled of anticipation.

Then it came. I think I saw it first, swimming about five meters underneath me and coming from behind. I banged my steel pointer furiously on the tank but could not make any sound (I later realized that the tank had a plastic mesh wrapped over it and I was banging on plastic, haha). Instantly, I switched to flutter kick and furiously swam to keep up with the shark. It swam ever so gracefully but those massive tail fin moved it so fast in the water that I could only followed it for less than five minutes. It was definitely a juvenile since the upper tail fin was much larger than the lower one and was about seven meters long. The up-close-and-personal experience was exhilarating. This first encounter only lasted no more than five minutes and it quickly disappeared into the murky water. But that five minutes was enough for me to get three shots off my Nikon. I had proof.

Osman, my Divemaster trainee, with his Apollo Bio-fins was able to get underneath the shark for this photo.

In the next four days, I went to the same spot every evening around 5.30pm and was able to meet the same young shark four more times, sometimes several appearances during the same dive. We even made one morning dive at Teluk Nakhoda and saw it there too so it was probably hanging out there most of the time. Out of these encounters, here are some of the best pictures.

Azhar, my other Divemaster trainee, was using a borrowed Canon G10 to get some videos of the shark.

This photo was colour-corrected in Photoshop. The markings on the Whaleshark body is unique to each individual shark and can be used to identify the animal.


I left Tenggol after six long days there with three PADI Open Water, one PADI Rescue and one PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certifications but most importantly, I brought back memories (and proof) of my first encounters with a young Rhincodon typus. Such encounters pull everything back into perspective. This is what diving is all about - being able to go underwater and meet such wonderful creatures that God has created for us to appreciate, so that we can acknowledge His omnipotence. As a Muslim, we say Alhamdulillah to Him.

Dive for Earth Day and Green Fins Survey 2009 - Tenggol Island

Site feed: Atom/RSS

Ocean Elements Sdn Bhd recently organised an underwater cleanup event under the Project AWARE “Dive for Earth Day” and a coral reef survey under the “Green Fins” banner, from 24 – 26 April 2009 at Tenggol Island. This year’s event was attended by 14 divers as well as 2 staffs from the Marine Park Department, under the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment Malaysia.


This program was a follow-up to the underwater cleanup event held at the same location from 28 – 30 August last year. During that event, more than 100kg of rubbish comprising mostly of tin cans, plastic and metal parts were removed from the Teluk Air Tawar bay area. Most of the rubbish came from the fishing vessels taking shelter in the bay area in between their fishing runs. This year’s event focused solely on removing the huge bundles of mooring lines and fishing nets that have been discarded by fishermen over the coral reefs for years. During the three dives conducted in the bay area, more than 80kg of lines and nets were successfully brought to the surface for disposal.



The divers also participated in the “Green Fins” coral reef survey, an initiative by Marine Park Department Malaysia and supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Ocean Elements was recently appointed as one of the “Green Fins” dive operator and Tenggol Island was picked as the location for our very first survey. The surveys were conducted at three locations around the island and the results were submitted to the Marine Park office for their analysis and statistics.

Green Fins: www.greenfins-malaysia.dmpm.nre.gov.my
Dept of Marine Park: www.dmpm.nre.gov.my

Pulau Tinggi, Johor - Mar09

Site feed: Atom/RSS

Early this month I made my first ever visit to Pulau Tinggi near Mersing, Johor. Jabatan Taman Laut (Department of Marine Park) Malaysia has a centre there and I wanted to see how we can utilise their place to run our conservation programs this year. During the visit, Petrosains Kuala Lumpur was conducting a program they called "My Outdoor Science" for a group of lecturers selected from the various teaching institutes around the country.

I did a couple of dives with Farouk, my old friend who's also a PADI Instructor and who has been running a small diving operation at Pulau Tinggi since last year. Farouk had graciously offered me a room above his dive centre for the duration of my visit.

During this trip, I had both the Panasonic Lumix TZ15 and LX3 camera for my underwater photography. The visibility was not so good and I managed to get only a handful of good images from the three dives I did there.

Lumix TZ15 + INON S-2000 strobe, 1/30 @ F3.3, ISO200, cloudy white balance, spot metering. S-2000 strobe on manual mode.

The highlight of the trip was the pair of Tigertail seahorses (Hippocampus comes), so named because of their distinctive yellow-black bands on their tails. Seahorses are ovoviviparous meaning they keep their eggs inside the adult's body until they hatch. What make a seahorse so special is that the male adult carries the eggs, not the female. It seemed to me that the male I saw in Pulau Tinggi was positively pregnant and would not budge from it's hiding place under the rubble. The female was more cooperative and I waited for her to climb up a dead piece of coral for the shot above.


As can be seen, the sea bed was covered with sedimentation and coupled with bad overall visibility at the dive site, I had to wait quite a bit of time for the silt to settle and the seahorses to get "in position" for the shots above. In all the shots, the strobe power was manually dialled down to prevent over-exposure since the subjects were somewhat close to the camera.

I was very happy because this time the INON S-2000 strobe worked flawlessly. Good exposure was achieved and the colours came out nice (including the green colour of the water there, haha).

The more expensive Lumix LX3, as expected gave good, nice colours as can be seen in the pictures of the Anemonefish below.


Lumix LX3 + INON D-2000. Both images above taken at 1/500 @ F8 manual exposure, ISO200, cloudy white balance, spot-metering and INON D-2000 on manual setting.

All the images were cropped and adjusted to correct their white- and black-points and then very slight adjustments were made in the images contrast and brightness. Overall, the images right out of both cameras were quite good already.

Panasonic Lumix Dive Community 1st Trip - KK

Site feed: Atom/RSS

I just came back from the inaugural dive trip of the Panasonic Lumix Dive Community to Kota Kinabalu last week. The dive trip was organized to coincide with the Panasonic launching of their new camera and camcorder lineup, held at the Shangri-la Rasa Ria Resort on 25 - 27 February 2009.

A couple of dives were arranged around the the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park and I had with me the Lumix TZ15 camera and underwater casing and the new INON S-2000 strobe to try out.

Panasonic Lumix TZ15 with INON S-2000 strobe, wireless trigger.

Panasonic Lumix TZ15 with INON S-2000 strobe, triggered using optical cable.

I tried out both the "conventional" optical cable triggering and the new "wireless" trigger from INON which utilizes a set of mirrors to reflect light from the built-in camera flash to the S-2000 strobe sensor. Unfortunately, the optical trigger did not produce satisfactory results.

F3.3 @ 1/30, ISO 200, manual white balance, -1.3 EV.

The image above was taken with the S-2000 strobe in S-TTL mode and triggered using optical cable connection. The honeycomb moray eel was about 50cm away. The first few shots came out so badly that I thought there must be something wrong with the camera auto white balance. I switched to manual WB but the colour I got only improved very slightly. Also, the images taken were consistently over-exposed that I had to apply a -1.3EV compensation in order to have a somewhat acceptable image. It was very frustrating since I had such a good subject to shoot but could not get the camera to give me good colours. The next few dives gave almost similar results. Swapping cameras did not solve the problem so the culprit must be the strobe.

My suspicion was confirmed when on one of the dives, I set the camera on manual white balance and then took pictures with and without flash. The results are shown below. Both images were taken using the following settings: F3.3 @ 1/250 sec, ISO 100, manual white balance, spot metering on the white ball.

Strobe switched ON

Strobe OFF

As can clearly be seen, the picture taken without the use of the strobe has colours that appeared natural and close to what I could see down there, while the one with the strobe on was absolutely horrible.

During the last dive for the trip which was a night dive, I went down with the INON S-2000 set to be triggered using the "wireless" system. The results were much more satisfactory.







So what's the problem mate? I got in touch with INON Japan and was told that the problem could be caused by incorrect synchronization between the TZ15 camera built-in flash and the INON strobe, which could have come from a bad optical cable connection. I need to check the optical cable end which is connected to the camera underwater casing to make sure that it is flat and in the right position to receive light from the built-in flash.

I will do the necessary adjustment in the next few days before my dive trip to Pulau Tinggi in Johor and will post the results here.

Panasonic Lumix TZ15 - Pool Pictures

Site feed: Atom/RSS

Here's the pictures from the pool session in Cheras on 7 Feb 2009, taken using the Panasonic Lumix TZ15 compact camera. I just came back from a work assignment in India and had some free time today to take a look at the images and do some minor adjustment. All the images have only been adjusted for their black- and white-point levels.

Here's where the 28mm wide-angle lense on the TZ15 came into good use. I like the nice capture of the surface ripples on the pool bottom. 1/400 @ F8, ISO200, cloudy white balance, no flash.

The TZ15 did a nice job capturing the ripples and wake on the surface of the pool. If an external strobe is available, we can try and get a better exposure on the boy. 1/1600 @ F8, ISO200, cloudy white balance, no flash.

The best image for the day. Nice capture of the sun ray coming down from behind Mimi's son, my not-so-cooperative model for the day, haha. Again, the 28mm lens gets you close to the subject for a somewhat acceptable exposure. 1/400 @ F8, ISO200, cloudy white balance, no flash.

New Year, New Toy - Panasonic Lumix TZ15

Site feed: Atom/RSS

The Year of the Ox certainly brought me early prosperity with the arrival of a brand new Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ15 compact camera and its underwater housing, on loan basis to yours truly, courtesy of Panasonic Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

The TZ15 came with a Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens with a focal length of 28mm on the wide-angle side which, for my underwater photography purposes, is what I'm quite excited to explore. The 3" 460k-pixel LCD will help me a lot underwater, that I'm pretty sure already.

As expected from a compact camera in this class, the TZ15 does not offer manual, aperture- or speed-priority shooting modes. Therefore, I will be trying either the "Underwater" scene mode or the "Normal picture" mode for my underwater shoots. There are three features of this camera which I immediately liked after a few minutes of going through the controls and manuals:

1. It's very easy to change the exposure compensation (EV) value using the directional buttons on the right side of the LCD


2. Important setting (to me at least) like white balance and metering mode can easily be accessed through the "quick menu" (Q-menu button)


3. Setting up a custom white balance is surprisingly easy.

The underwater casing looks cool too. I like the design of the flash diffuser (top-left side of the round lens port) which incorporated a "trench" for you to pass through an optical cable from an external strobe such as those from INON to the back of the diffuser. The casing also has a built-in slot to nicely hold an INON optical sensor in place. The casing was designed with INON strobe in mind I believe.

I had the camera with me last weekend at the Cheras pool during the Reef Check training session and will post up the pictures here later.

The First Award

Site feed: Atom/RSS

On Friday 30 January 2009, I received an email from the Project AWARE Foundation which reads:

Dear Halimi

Congratulations! Project AWARE is delighted to award Ocean Elements the 2008 Environmental Achievement Award.

After reviewing your application, we have determined that your dive operation has met all requirements set forth for Project AWARE’s Environmental Achievement Award and shown exemplary efforts to conserve aquatic environments through education, advocacy and action. Therefore, we’re proud to name you an official 2008 recipient!

That's Award Number One. Two more to go.

Selayar Island, Makassar - Images

Site feed: Atom/RSS

My three-year-old Compaq Presario laptop finally died on me. The DC supply circuitry on the motherboard must have gone kaput, I believe. However, when I sent it to the HP service centre at Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, they told me that the laptop has got everything from a common cold to cervical cancer. It was doomed, they preached. However, all is not lost they helpfully added. There is hope but it comes with a price tag of RM2,500. Oh, please HP. You don't need to have a Degree in Computing to know that it costs less than RM2,500 to get the latest incarnation of the Compaq model and it would be utter stupidity for me to pay that much to revive my aging companion. With a tinge of sadness, I paid RM95 which HP asked me for the examination, took my old friend back and performed my own surgery. The hard disk is still good. Most importantly, the data is 100% intact (sorry, HP technical personnel, either you didn't even bother to check or you think the owner is so naive that he'd believe anything you put down in your report).

Here they are, saved from the hands of those doomsday preachers at HP Service Centre at Jalan Gelenggang, my pictures from Selayar Island, Makassar, South Sulawesi. 100% intact.

My friend and fellow underwater photographer, Pak Reko, ascending the walls at "Ani's Hideaway".



Nice healthy corals are abundant in Selayar

"Sunken Island" gave us about 35 meter visibility during that trip.

At the end of the diving day...

In the background is Selayar Island Resort's fine dive boat.