Kuwait Reefs

Last Wednesday we went to our bio rock project...the sun was grilling hot and as we approach Qarouh Island we discover that we forget our coral collecting basket!!! What are we going to do know??!! We already lost one of our baskets last week when we where there.  We went on the island to check if the Kuwaiti Cost Guards got any spar basket and the first thing we found is our beautiful blue basket near the C.G station entrance it was such a relief. :D

We checked our electric supply equipments we went back to the boat to prepare for our dive to collect the broking corals.

The water was amazing it feels that you are in the Maldives but the sizzling heat will easily evaporate this though and bring you back to reality.

It really feels good when you take the first dip in the water

That's me on the boat talking to Team Leader Capt. Jasim Al Failakawi

The first dive normally for collecting the broking corals and we transfer it to the other side of the island to fix them on our biorock models.

The team done so well in collecting the corals, we have to be careful as the corals are very fragile and easy to break

Saving the broking corals

 

All OK......Our basket getting full

 

All done...The Basket is full!!!

Sea urchins.... try to find its eye  ;)

 

Heave up!!!! Time to pull up the basket

After collecting some coral and taking a break. We transferred to the other side of the island to our project location the water is amazing we can't wait to jump in the water ... of course we where greeted by our spiky sea urchins as you can see in the picture below.

 Yes every one this is in Kuwait!!! Mashallah!! (Mashallah means blessing from God said when seeing something pleasant or beautiful)

If you’re read my last post I have mentioned some of the problem we have in Kuwait that effecting our coral reefs one of which the uncontrolled fishing of fishes that feed on sea urchins such as the Parrot Fish or as we call it in Kuwait Gain. I was so angry that I had to get out the water when I saw this fish's head freshly cut and through in the water which landed on one of our models....this fish is nearly extinct from Kuwaiti water and when we found one we find it in this state ??!!!



 Pleas let's leave this fish alone ...we need it so badly for our reef. The number of sea urchins is growing so fast and sea urchins feeds on Corals!!! Gain or Parrot Fish feeds on a sea urchin that’s way we need it near our reefs.

Looking at the bright side little creatures start to move into our BioRock reefs and the number of fishes start to grow up.

Can you spot the littel one on the middle of the coral???

I have a dream to make our reefs a place that attracts divers from all around the world and I believe this is the first step toward that dream.

Until next post...Take Care and God bless

The Summer Break

It's known that in the summer break most of the Kuwaiti travele abrod ...
But why???
can't we make Kuwait a tourists attraction destination...???
I think we can... and we already taking the first steps towards this target...I know that some of you are think now " what the hek his talking about???!!!" and I dont blame you ;-)  let me explain.......

Have you ever heared about BIOROCK REEF??
 as you know corals takes a lot of years to grow and what people are doing to the is not helping too... here in Kuwait most of our reefs suffers from coral bleaching.
the pictures below are Not in Kuwait ..it just a good example for coral bleaching which a serious sign that the coral are dieing and when the corals dies it will have a hugh negative impact on marin life.

So the Diving team in the Kuwait Enviornment Protection Society (KEPS) started the BioRock project in one of Kuwait Islands and after all the hard work the good result start to show up..
BioRock is basicly bulding a steel models and conect it to one side of the power supply to act like a Cathode,and connect the other side to an Anode to creat an electric filed of 6~9 volts which is safe to divers and marine life, this will result of bulding up of calcium carbonate on the steel model, the divers will collect broken coral and fix it on the steel model so that the calcium will provid a good fixing point for the broken coral and with the electric stimulation the corals will grow 5 times faster. Unfortunately most people in Kuwait are not enviornmental friendly or not green enough . As you can see in the picture below , most of Kuwait islands have mooring buoy to be used instead of the boat's anchor to not destroyed any coral , but this boat owner decided to drop his anchor near the mooring buoy??!!

Also uncontrolled fishing ,  Specially spear fishing , has resulted in extinction of some fishes that feed on sea urchin and now sea urchin are increasing in numbers so fast and the problem in that , sea urchins feeds on corals.
The diving team in KEPS are working so hard to revive the coral reef in Kuwait island and make Kuwait a Diving Heaven Destination....

 Kuwaiti squid

 Diving Team Leader ...Capt. Jasem Al Failakawi working on one of Biorock models

 Capt. Jasim Al Failakawi with his team fixing broken corals on one of the models

Me :)  scuring some of broken corals on one of the models

 The infestation of the sea urchins

At the end I really recommend that you visit the Kuwait Environment Protection Society they have raelly good summer activities for kids .There are in Shouakh next to KNPC bulding or call : 24848256 - 24812019