Island Life Part 2 - The Sights and Sounds of Life at TRACC

The coos and twitters of jungle birds and the rising sun have become my alarm clock. Opportunities to dive and explore, and a huge knowledge base await the day, and I wake filled with the excitement of living another day at TRACC.

Throughout the day the soundtrack of camp weaves a happy harmony. The mornings are filled with the soft sounds of morning rituals, people softly talking or moving about the kitchen and camp making coffee and breakfast, writing, reading, or listening to music, or simply waking up. In the day various lectures can be heard wafting from the classroom or projects being planned, interspersed with the whirl of the air compressor filling tanks and light construction on the new building. The evenings are often accented by gentle songs played on the guitar by one of the many members of camp, or the sound of Takraw being played, or camp members drinking an evening beer to sit and tell stories or talk about the days behind and ahead. Throughout the day there is a constant happy chattering in English and Bahasa and giggles wafting from the kitchen up the path to the beachfront communal living area, “Number 4”. And of course there is always the steady constant sound of waves lapping at the white sandy beach.

The scene as I walk through camp is equally diverse and steadily bustling. From morning till night divers are to be found gearing up and disappearing into the ocean to explore its sandy depths, or plant corals and artificial reefs. Number 4 is filled with a spread of books concerning coral and topical fish identification, notebooks, marine science textbooks, and the various works in progress of many personal and conservation projects, plus the conversations of people who are all passionately talking about the ocean they are participating in every day. On the dock, a family can be found with many children running to and fro, playing and always saying hello whenever someone passes. Boats leave and return to the shore sporadically. Something is always being improved, fixed, or expanded. And the people of camp walk to and fro with dry bags slung over shoulders as backpacks. The scene is one of constant mellow productivity, learning and expansion.

The opportunities TRACC presents to get involved are immense and refreshing, with each member of TRACC actively participating in making this world a cleaner, healthier place to live, work and be fully involved in.

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Island Life Part 1 - Welcoming Waves from Shore and Sea

I’ve arrived at the Tropical Research and Conservation Center of Borneo!

Loading the Cargo Boat

But before arrival on this perfectly stereotypical island paradise is the fun work of loading the two boats – the Flying Fish and the Cargo boat, with goods and supplies from Tawau and Semporna. Bags of personal gear, tiles, toilet cisterns, a double sink, fruit, gin, vodka, soda, potatoes, chicken wire, tape measurers, 10 foot long aluminum wall supports, recharge cards for phones and internet, wetsuits, fins, booties, treats like nuts and dried fruit, big blue 100 gallon plastic barrels to be used for moorings, diesel, oil, two stroke mix, the book “Viralnomics” carried from England for Professor Steve, a boat part carried from Alaska, and 5 people – 3 soon to be Divemaster’s, 1 new teacher, 1 volunteer, 1 professor, and 1 true man (The TRACC everything man Dino).

Cargo for the Island

Boats low in the bow with the weight of gear and supplies, and people arranged to balance the boat and we’re off. We leave the new tourist jetty, with its long wooden arm reaching into the ocean and in the distance, young men cart wheelbarrows of partly dried seaweed off a nearby dock, while children play and among them. The background of crowded and loosely planked and stilted houses with a startlingly silver mosque tower gleaming brilliantly behind them, and the sadly dirty water with droves of plastic trash floating on the surface melts away, and we enter the scene of deep, dreamy blue ocean accented by hazy distant mountainous Islands. One soon-to-be Divemaster lounges on the gear, smiling with the delight of a new adventure and bouncing up and down with the waves and motion of the boat. Onboard our tiny vessel there is a communal feeling of elation, excitement, adventure.

Dino Driving us to Pom-Pom Island

Soon, Pom-Pom Island appears. From the distance it looks perfectly circular and white rimmed, and the sense of elation increases. The Flying Fish slows, then stops unexpectedly, presenting a perfect moment to take in the island scene, complete with a merry welcoming party before stepping onto shore.

3 plus months of sun, sand, diving, learning, and adventures above and below the water await, and I couldn’t be more delighted to be here and a part of TRACC.

The adventures continue in part 2

For more information, please check the TRACC website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org 

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Coral identification

The easist corals to study are in the lagoon and
are very shallow at low tide.  However even with the books
and easy access it is hard to identify hard corals to family
and we can identify very few to species.   YET :-)

More blogs on Marine science class 2016
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Conservation projects 2016

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Marine life identification

Close association by different organisms
is the norm in the ocean. 
These are white ascidians, Tan feather like hydroids
and red sponge.

The marine science A level students have been learning about taxonomy and classification.  From the huge differences between different phyla to the difficulties of identifying marine life to species.  The first practical was to look at rare and unusual marine life so diving gear on, the students jumped into the ocean at the TRACC house reef.


We found no mammals - except the Pilot whale :-)  and the Dolphins,  Plus the cuteist baby shark,  Wow and double wow,


The more unusual marine life yielded a wide range of phyla,  many sponges, ascidians, hydroids, molluscs and crustaceans.  If you don't know what all these are and why they are important parts of the biodiversity then you need this class!!!

Black coral which is actually BARBIE PINK !

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Conservation projects 2016

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Ceranth anemone (Phyla Anthozoa)

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Colonial ascidian (Phyla Tunicates)

Gorgonian (phyla Anthozoa)

Worms in calcium tubes. (Phyla

How to do a Beach transect

line the tops of two poles with the horizon

Beach transects were the marine science fieldwork practical today.  Of course, a quick study of the tide tables showed that the new moon low tide (spring tides) was in the middle of the day.  At the equator, (TRACC is at 4 Deg N), the big tides each month are always high at dawn and dusk and low at midnight and midday.

Equipped with sunscreen and carefully marked survey poles the intrepid Marine Science A level class braved the short walk to our beautiful white sand beach.

The techniques is simple, from the low tide line the beach slope and elevation is measured at 20 cm intervals. The height of the water at the time of low tide is known from the tide tables. The longer survey pole is held at the low tide line and the shorter pole moved up the beach until looking across the top of both poles lines up with the horizon.  When the two pole tops and the horizon are aligned then the short pole is 20 cm higher up the beach than the long pole.  We measured the distance between the bottoms of the poles to give a measure of beach slope.

We repeated the process, by moving the big bottom pole to the position of the top pole and then repeating the leveling by moving the top pole another 20 cm vertically up the beach.














The beach slope was fairly constant at 1in 7 or approximately 12 degrees.  With a giant yellow protractor we checked this.angle.

 With a practiced technique we are now ready to tackle beaches with varying slopes, sediment types and biological communities.

More blogs on Marine science class 2016
More info on the Cambridge Marine science A level class

Become a volunteer in 2016 here

Conservation projects 2016

For more information, please check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org 

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Coral catshark comeback

WO HO  our coral catsharks are breeding!!! Great news

In 2013, we bought 25 coral catsharks from the live fish trade and saved them from being eaten. We have also bought Humphead wrasse and Humpback groupers and successfully released them. We released the coral catsharks on Pom Pom Island and now they can be seen on most night dives. 
The great news is that last night we saw a juvenile coral catshark - this cutiepie individual was only just larger than a hand so definitely less than one year old.  Immigration from other islands is of course possible but unlikely given how deep the water is around the island and how few sharks there are on any Semporna reef SO the great conclusion is that we have had breeding success. 

Lets drink a toast to the coral catshark populations that are making an effort to repopulate the pom pom reefs.

With several years of reef recovery, the fish population of the Pom Pom Island protected area is now large enough to support more sharks.  We have a plan to save more sharks from being eaten and reintroduce them to protected reefs.  Click here for more info about our shark saving activities.

Coral cat sharks swimming around the reef - much better than being eaten :-)

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