sgbeachbum: seacil

Thursday, November 15, 2012

rain, seagrass, a driftnet, 101 BBQ mesh squares and seacils @ labrador- 14Nov2012

Was out at Labrador Nature Reserve's intertidal zone for a bit of seagrassing with Team Seagrass on Nov 14 taking advantage of the low afternoon tide. The storm front quickly blew in from the West shutting out the warmth of the sun. Having started the random sampling, the lightning followed too soon after by rumbling thunder put a quick end to the ambitious start.

Taking refuge from the deluge below the overhead shelter, what became obvious was the flotsam which had accumulated below the walkway. There was quite an amount of styrofoam and plastic bottles. Strangely, there was an accumulation of BBQ wire mesh in a few neat stacks close to the start of the overhead walkway. Someone had stacked up about 20 wire mesh squares in two main piles below the walkway. These were well browned from the rust but there were some silvered ones as well.

When the rain subsided, I found a few more mesh squares on the beach as I walked down to the seagrass patches.

There were quite a few squares on the rocky shore as well...

Some of the squares were partially buried under the sand.

I eventually came to find higher concentrations of mesh squares scattered near the base of the seawall fronting the promenade facing the jetty.

Eventually, a total of 101 BBQ mesh squares of various sizes were removed from the shore.

It looks like someone has thrown over the mesh squares either at one go or over a few successive days. ..or perhaps over an extended period of time. There were a few squares partially buried through which Ovalis seagrass had grown. These would have been there at least a couple of weeks. Most were well rusted but some where shiny and had not been used before. The shiny ones were perhaps recently discarded... perhaps the day before or that very morning itself. There had been a public holiday the day before on Nov 13.

Perhaps there was a troll lolling around at Labrador which specializes in throwing BBQ mesh squares from the promenade?

... and then I spotted something else in the water... A triangular pipe section which was connected by a rope to another triangular pipe section. This was presumably part of the seacil project from some 5 years ago. Looks like parts are still being regurgitated from the deeper part of the reef just off the shore where the seacils were laid down.

As if the wire mesh and the seacils were not enough,... on the other side of the jetty, there was a driftnet which was about 50m long which had been laid across about 25m from the shore.

This was already badly entangled around coral fragments and sargassum and there were a total of 6 spider conch snails and 1 red egg crab caught up in the net.

Luckily, these were still alive but it took some careful cutting (against a darkening evening sky and a rising tide) with a pair of scissors before they could be released.