baby turtle season

Baby turtle hatching season starts soon!!! we're expecting many many hatching in month of July till early august!! Hopefully all guest will enjoy baby turtle release with us then! =)

coral reef restoration project

Good news! We're going to start our coral reef restoration project soon! 

Thanks to our marine biologist intern student, Yong Yoong Soon from Universiti Malaysia Sabah who has written a superb proposal to our management and finally approved to run the project!! Starting tomorrow, we'll start a series of work, from the first stage of setting up floating coral nursery and getting coral pieces for transplantation till getting people for coral adoption and planting the coral back to the nature. Hopefully, we'll be able to accelerate the growth of coral through this effort=)

Look forward for good outcome!

turtle conservation workshop 2010

The Reef Dive Resort, Mataking island was invited to join the turtle conservation workshop which aims for more collaboration effort between the NGO, Government, local community and resort operators in turtle work. The workshop start on the 16th June at Seafest Hotel, and 17th June at Pom-pom island. 

Presentation session by WWF, Sabah Park and local community

Group photo for the 16th June participants and speaker

A nice hall in Pom-Pom for our 3 sessions presentation

Practical session with Irwan and Johny from sabah park

Its a turtle drawing that they make on the sand to demonstrate turtle eggs collection and tagging method

Again, group photo for participants in Pom-Pom

It's Mataking team!!! we're the turtle lover=)

left to right: Jijul (turtle patroller), amelia (marine biologist), Yong ( MB intern), and Ateng (turtle patroller)

Last but not least, we from mataking helps pom-pom island hatchery to collect their baby green turtles, so cute!! there's no boundary in saving the turtles

~THE END~

Reef Check O__O

is this look boring to you? yeah.. it was... 

That's all reef check about? help to assess the condition of the reef=)

On the 6th June 2010, a group of ppl meet together at The reef, eager to contribute more in understanding and conservation of coral reef. The group of ppl lead by Julian Hyde, the coordinator of reef check malaysia, our trainer! Representative from Borneo Diver, KK - Jinnifer Missi and WWF Malaysia - Nina Ho join us Hardy Habirah and Amelia Ng (Mataking DM) for the Reef check trainer training. 

underwater practical of fish, invert and substrate identification

Mr Julian (in white shirt), explain patiently on the presentation method

Here are the four participants for reef check trainer

left to right: Hardy, Nina, Amelia, Jinnifer

one-to-one training and evaluation 

so, u can walk on the rope? 

The reef check training ends on the 8th June, and left Hardy, Amelia and Julian and our new volunteer Yong for the reef check transect set up on the 9th and 10th=) Hopefully, through our effort, we'll be able to monitor the reef condition closer and improve the reef condition.

The reef check transect team

*all photos credited to yong and nina (2010)

reef day 2010

Reef day is annual event for Mataking island, The Reef Dive Resort. This year, we have our Reef day event on the 5th June 2010 with 105 participants excluding our own resort staffs! We have 3 secondary schools from Semporna and 1 school from Tawau to join us. Not only that, we also have participation from PGA and army based in Mataking island and Pandanan island. Dato Pangiran and family from Pandanan also join us for whole day too=) We also have WWF and Reef check Malaysia to come and join us in this exciting event. Ohya! Not forgetting the valuable guests of The Reef who willing to sacrifice their time to join our activities=)

For the program, we have beach/shoreline cleaning and underwater cleaning; discover reef check (lead by reef check malaysia, Julian Hyde) and awareness talk. After the clean up, the students have their snorkeling session with our free snorkel guide around our house reef. In the afternoon, we have youth ablast treasure hunt program for the students. The session end with prize giving ceremony for the most unique rubbish, greatest amount of rubbish, largest size rubbish and treasure hunt champion. Guess what? We have collected a total of 745.9kg of rubbish in just less than 2 hours time!!! 

4pm... departure of all the day trip participants to their respective home... good bye all! Come again next year for our Reef Day 2011!

Arrival of the excited secondary school students participants

opening speech by Mr Luke J. Cox our resort manager 

awareness talk on rubbish by Nina Ho from WWF Malaysia

dividing the beach cleaning participants into 4 groups (with 4 team leader behind me)

WOW! our diving boat ready to pick up the 'earth warrior' to respective area for cleaning up activities

'Go go go! we're ready to clean up the rubbish!' 

final call for boarding

even our resort manager also participate in the cleanup!

not forgetting, the underwater cleanup team

Hardy, our DM showing the rubbish he collected

it's not easy to pick rubbish under hot sun... 

students have free snorkeling session with our snorkeling guides after the clean up=) yuhoo!!

Group photo for our successful reef day beach & underwater cleaning up event! 

presentation by nattalee from wwf malaysia for the youth who participate for the evening youth ablast treasure hunt activities

treasure hunt activities in action!

final task - getting the golf ball into its hole! tough tough!!

the champion for the treasure hunt games!

Prize giving ceremony

- THE END-

Baby turtle release

50 baby turtles released on the 19th May!

 It's the first ever hawksbill batch release by our intern boy Yong=)

Excited Yong holding the baby turtle (ehem.. with the serious face ooo)

Showing the baby tutles to the curious guest

Excited baby turtles waiting to be release

Link to the video production please click at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRkLt8XaS9Y

Hope you enjoy the video =) 

Whale sinking

Whale sinking? Yes! It's true! We just completed our very first whale sinking this morning at Mataking island!

On the fine morning of 5th May 2010, while me and my divers on our boat journey back from dive site at Cahaya Way (Bohayan island), we come across a dead body of a whale (which later identified as pilot whale).After discussion with the management of Mataking island and with marine mammals expertise from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (Dr. Saifullah A. Jaaman), we decided to tow the pilot whale back to the island.

So, with the boat 003, we towed the whale back to Mataking island and sink it near eel garden (at shollow reef). However, due to strong current, we have to postpon our work till evening and successfully particially submerge. The next morning, we try to strengthen the rope due to fear that the whale will sweep away by the current, and with two attempt, we finally have it tied well and feel good at our job.

To our astonish, next morning the rope loosen, and the whale drift in front of the resort. Another attempt to tie it to the shallow reef behind Mataking Kecil. And till now, it's in good condition (as in it's not drift away, hehe). Will continue to update on the progress of our whale story=)

Till c!

While towing the whale back

PIlot whale suspected to chocked to death because of the fish in the mouth (see... jangan tamahak)

It takes 40 minutes to tow it back to the island, very very very slow speed...

Eeerrriiiieee look.. 

Not sure what causes this...  What you think? 

Taking tissue sample from the pilot whale for UMS collection

Curious neo & agnese

Really big 'little brother' of the whale XD

The end for this time! Till c again!