Horse Shoe Crab Release

A short stop in Lahad Datu for breakfast around 6am today turned into another Marine-life Rescue Mission for TRACC. Two Pala'u ladies arrived at the morning market with 3 horseshoe crabs. Both of them hardly speak any Malay so couldn't find out the exact location where they caught these pre-historic looking creatures. 

Anyway, bought all 3 horseshoe crabs and took them to Pom Pom island. I personally have only seen one here last year but we have seen many small ones in Kulapuan. Hope the release of one big female and two smaller males will bring back the population of horseshoe crabs around Pom Pom island. Our staff and volunteers were so excited to have this rare opportunity to handle these living fossils and releasing them back into the sea! - Gon

Horseshoe crabs are easy to catch and are often found in the fish market. They don't have any "meat" to speak of and taste a bit like fresh seaweed (salty, rubbery, cold and disgusting).

Horseshoe Crabs are often called "living fossils". The earliest record of them is in the Ordovician period 450,000,000 years old and they haven't changed much since.

They're more closely related to spiders than crabs but have 10 legs rather than 8 and external gills like a prawn.

They also have a peculiar number of "eyes". There are two compound eyes where you might expect them to be, but then there are five additional "eyes" that have different resolutions and functions - two of them respond to visible light and three to ultraviolet. There are also light receptors along the tail that helps the Horseshoe synchronize its body clock with light and day. Finally, there are two ventral (on the underside) eyes near its mouth.

Fun Dive at North Tip

The diversity at North Tip

The biodiversity at North tip has changed dramatically since May. Bluespotted ribbontail ray, nudibranch, bumphead parrotfish at the size of approximately one meter, humphead wrasse and the redtooth triggerfishes definitely grabbed my attention throughout this dive. Evidently, the photo above shows the diversity of fishes at approximately 30 meters. The redtooth triggerfishes are seen gracefully swimming about in the open blue water.

Redtooth triggerfish are one of the most diverse fish at North Tip.

Blue spotted ribbon tail ray at North Tip.

Furthermore, humphead wrasses have not been seen for more than five months. However, they were recently seen again in mid-August. During this fun dive, an adult humphead wrasse was just swimming peacefully past us. It was definitely a sight to see as I have never seen a humphead wrasse swimming in the ocean but rather I will always see these wrasses in Chinese restaurants, cramped up in small tanks ready to be slaughtered.  TRACC has so far bought and released 15 juveniles :-)

Humphead wrasses and Bluefin Trevally at North Tip.

(This blog is written by Natalie Chai)

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If you want to visit and volunteer to help with any marine conservation activity, please check our website http://tracc.org or email info@tracc-borneo.org

For more updates on TRACC check out our Facebook, Twitter or Google+

If visits to Tracc are not possible then like us and share our projects on Social media.

Donations to community projects, or support / sponsor an Intern or Marine science student are always welcome.

Funday at Matabuan

A healthy coral reef at Matabuan.

On Sundays, we normally take a day off from conservation work and go FUNdiving :-) I remember when we went to Matabuan as our fun day trip. The ride to Matabuan was rather rough as a storm has just hit. Thus, when we went down for a dive, the visibility was not as great. However, undeniably, the coral reef is so much more diverse and healthier compared to Pom Pom Island. Good job done by Sabah Parks (Mantabuan is in Tun Sakaran Park, and has a marine police presence.)

A green turtle swimming into the blue.

Divers showing off their flying kicks and back flips.

Other than admiring the beauty of the coral reef, one of the most memorial part of the dive in Matabuan was 

when we found a patch of sand at depth about 8 meters. What is more fun than to take off our fins and do flips and flying kicks? We spent a good time defying gravity and although we consumed a lot of our air, it was still unforgettable.

Lunch at Matabuan Island.

Hunger took over after that dive and so we had lunch on the island. We found a good spot with lots of shade, placed a tarp on the sand and settled down. We had some good discussion about what we saw during the dive and played a game of charades. After much laughter, it was time to head back to Pom Pom. Fun day to Matabuan was definitely a day we would never trade for any other days. The dive site, the company of these volunteers, the food, the view and everything else on top of that.

If you want to help with any marine conservation activity, please check our website http://tracc.org or email info@tracc-borneo.org

For more updates on TRACC check out our Facebook, Twitter or Google+

More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities and coralreefcare.com who generously provided materials to build the new reefs.

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.

Social Media Internships

Could you be this girl? Taking fifty shots to get the perfect sunset? Or this one? Lounging in a hammock while you upload some video you took on this morning's diving? Tracc has a vacancy for a social media intern.

We're offering a qualified diver a 12 week stay, and all the diving you can do for just £625 (US$830) and some social media maintenance.  If you're not a diver we can teach you at cost.

We don't need professional photographers, videographers or journalists, although if you are one, you're more than welcome to apply! 

Just someone who can point and shoot and capture what it is we do with enthusiasm.

As our SM Intern you will:

• Write a blog on your experiences at least once a week.
• Post to Facebook and Instagram daily.
• Twitter about our science, conservation and diving.
• Curate the multitude of photos our volunteers take and maintain the photo database.

To apply, please write a 500 word blog post on anything you like, attach a couple of your best happy-snaps and e-mail them to info@tracc-borneo.org

Creature Feature - The Flamboyant Cuttlefish Spotted at TRACC

Photo by Basil Bohn

Sometime experiencing life in the ocean is like living in a series of Dr. Seuss books. Today with the sighting of the Flamboyant cuttlefish I feel like I’m in the Grinch – my heart grew three sizes today.

There she appeared, crawling and flashing her brilliant spectrum of colors – diver masks nearly pressed against the sand. The flamboyance of this charismatic creature apparent in the way she moves, the way she looks, the psychedelic flashings of her aposematic skin. She’s a teacup poodle of the cuttlefish family, and she hovers and twirls her tiny translucent ballerina skirt of a fin. She prowls and scours the sandy ocean floor, a small desert for her, and protrudes her many trunk like modified arms and tentacles searching for tiny crustaceans and fishes. When this charming predator spots her prey, her florescent hue turns to a sandy

Photo by Basil Bohn

camouflage and with lightning speed, a milky white tentacle shoots out to capture her unsuspecting meal. Equally awesome and strange in her mating rituals, this tiny tennis ball proportioned Cephalopoda, will dwarf her male be counterpart, before he injects her arm with his sperm packet. In turn, she will store the sperm to make eggs and spit them out of her squiggly mouth, hiding them one by one in protected recesses, before dying a selfless reproduction death.

Wonderful and strange is this ocean world, and some days, only the happy muffled squeals of a Sophie excited by sea life in a Dr. Seuss world can express the delight.

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If you want to help with any marine conservation activity, please

Photo by Basil Bohn

check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org

The main website is at http://tracc.org

Check out our posts on our activities
on fb tracc.borneo
on twitter tracc_borneo
on google + tracc

or simply #tracc or #traccblog on Google, Facebook, twitter or instagram

Successful coral growth in 2015

Bottle reefs with healthy growing acropora coral on a barren
reef crest areas

 At the end of 2015, it is very gratifying to look back at the corals we planted this year.  The reefs all over Pom Pom island are looking awesome, with healthy coral, lots of fish and amazing biodiversity.

Stylophora colonies  growing on bottle reef,

The house reef is where we concentrated lots of effort this year,  We need the reef to grow, interlock and become a wave break to stop beach erosion during the summer storms.  If the beach erodes it affects turtle nesting and we don't want that.

We know that sea level is rising and stoms are becoming stronger so repairing the damage done to the reef by blast fishing makes lots of sense.  A healthy reef is wave and storm resistant and grows dense coral which causes the waves to break before they reach the sand beach.

Our ribbon reef is growing and has lots of healthy acropora coral which is interlocking to stabilise both the coral and the skeleton bottle reefs.  Fingers crossed that the growth will be strong enough to resist the SW monsoon storms next year.

Thanks to all the great volunteers who created some fantastic reefs in 2015.

 Become a volunteer in 2016 here

Branching staghorn coral growing around a bottle reef

Conservation activites

Fish population growth     Video
Rescued sharks
Turtle volunteer surveys

Conservation projects 2016

More about our reefs

Reef restoration
Coral nursery
Step reefs on the slope
Soft coral nets. 

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





The main website is at http://tracc.org
Check out our posts on our activities
on fb tracc.borneo
on twitter tracc_borneo
on google + tracc

or simply #tracc or #traccblog on Google, Facebook, twitter or instagram

Thanks to our sponsors #GEF #sgp (the small grants programme of the GEF), as well as Ocean planet #oceanplanet and Coral care #coralcare

This work is a team effort so thanks to all our staff and volunteers.

Help - divers or snorkellers wanted

TRACC is offering really cheap diving or snorkelling for Sept- Nov 2015 only.  WE need help :-) with marine conservation on our beautiful tropical island near Sipadan in Sabah, Malaysia.

TRACC has received a grant to plant coral THIS YEAR. It must be done before we begin our larval fish project in 2016. We need to get a LOT of coral planted and we don't have anywhere near the time or people to do it.

Since the grant is covering the "construction", we are offering stays at TRACC at 50% of our normal fees. This is literally what it costs us to feed people and run boats so that we can get this done.

We can teach people to dive if needs be, but honestly, that takes the boat away from the work.

£255 1 week, no dive courses.

£510 2 weeks, no dive courses.

£670 2 weeks, 1 dive course (obviously I can't discount what we pay to qualify you).

Arrivals between now and November 16th. Snorkelling spouses and children welcome.

Please share this amongst your diving friends, it really, really is an amazing offer and with some help we can do some great reef restoration and conservation between now and December.

Remember this is for unlimited diving, we normally do 3-4 dives each day with about half work dives and half photography/ biodiversity surveys. Coral reef restoration is not exactly hard work but it will use diving skills you don't have yet!!!!

Pom Pom island is in the coral triangle and has warm clear water and amazing biodiversity.





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

The main website is at http://tracc-borneo.org
Check out our posts on our activities
on fb tracc.borneo
on twitter tracc_borneo
on google + tracc

or simply #tracc or #traccblog on Google, Facebook, twitter or instagram