long outstanding groovy blog

Blog update

So here it is finally, after several failed attempts : the long dreaded blog update!
Naturally a lot has happened in the last 2 months (has it really been so long already that we’ve been here for?!) project ups and downs, Philippines and its culture/non-culture, cabin fever, mud and mozzies amongst other things. So much that i hardly know where to start or with how much i should bore everyone...
Let’s start with the nitty gritty, the actual reason for our presence here, the projects. Not that i know much detail of esther’s but she’s found a translator/interpreter which is a great and essential help in getting her interviews going. The lady’s called “Bing” and also provides esther with cultural etiquette etc (not that i care too much, spending the whole day in the mud with the most elegant mangrove trees and annoying mosquitoes, not much time for manners and dresscodes :P)
So basically i really started my project ehm seems like a long time ago that i first waded through that mud and put those meshbags down. Well it’s about 6 weeks ago that the whole shenanigan commenced, starting with the collection of the leaves and the manufacturing of the infamously green meshbags whose birth esther superbly described (i still think marvin was mental to start with, had nothing to do with me! His current state however is another matter...) since then the whole grand project has taken a bit of a diet becoming smaller and smaller as time passes, resources and manpower don’t allow me to follow all the ideas i was intending to implement. I guess that’s the first lesson i learned, several others were to follow... so all in all a lot has gone more awry than i wished for (not that i wished for any)... I basically had to abandon the idea to investigate decomposition rate facilitated by crabs and am concentrating on the decomposition rate of leaves shielded away from macrofauna (although I found several smaller beasties within my bags when I reclaimed them, such as several snails, worms and what they call here the “mother of tamilok”). Also I’m only looking at the mangrove here at Kalibo, no time to go to the others repeatedly.... this one here alone is causing me enough hassle :P another difficulty i encountered about 3 weeks ago when it was time to catch the first batch of meshbags (I collect three batches at 3 weeks, 5 weeks and 8 weeks) I quickly realised how difficult it is to find them. Since my trusty GPS is a bit of a loser and requires far too many satellites than it could ever pick up underneath a canopy I have basically no reliable coordinates to go by and must trust my scattered brain (and that of marvin’s and avit’s) bit like a squirrel.... the plastic tags with which we marked the trees are not of much help, at least to me as they marvellously blend into the foliage (unless they are blue, i’m really good with the blue ones!). There were times when i was tempted masquerading the whole thing as a “treasure hunt” and get the local kids involved..... morality got the better of me however hence I made the boys work harder.
Other let downs include my littertraps which keep on disappearing....would be surprised if I had any left at the end. They seem to be so tempting to the locals that they can’t resist but take them....
I strongly believe to my current level of experience and imagination that mangroves are some of the most tricky and harshed as well as annoying environments to work in. Not only is one reliant on tidal inundations which force us to get up at 5am every two weeks but also cause the water to sneak up on us unexpectedly! One minute standing knee deep in mud the next minute in water thigh high! Also mangroves are a health hazard in themselves! I never injured myself so often in a day! The amount of bruises in addition to countless mosquitoe bites that can fit on ones legs is impressive! In addition there are treacherous oysters housing on the prop/stilt roots of mostly Rhizophora on which one can obtain quite sharp and deep cuts. As a result we are going through quite a few pairs of shoes... since normal shoes alone are not doing the trick we’ve come up with a number of solutions (all short lived though...) marvin has developed the “sock over shoe” technique in which he places a large sportsock over the rather loosely fitting aquashoe. Aquashoes are meant to be worn in water, they have a superbly solid and robust sole, however the upper fabric is rubbish and is destroyed by the mighty mangroves within days (if not hours). Normal shoes such as converse on the other hand are lacking on the sole but are sturdy enough on the top, so i have come up with the “double shoe” practice where you wear your aquashoe on top of the converse. Even though, this only last for about a week and a half before the upper fabric gives in. Shoe-enemy numero uno is Sonneratia with its massive pneumatophores, icecream like cones which get through every shoe sole. In addition to these main mangrove hazards is the untrustworthy bamboo walkway on which I fell to my demise once and tripped countless times. So after spending day after day in the “grooves” measuring and counting trees, taking soil samples and canopy pictures or collecting mesh bags I spent some of my nights in the “shack” (boys quarter) where my make-shift drying machine is stationed. Since I had some difficulty obtaining an electric oven to evenly dry my leaves I decided to dry them with a 1000Watt powerful halogen light! (Note : seems like they bake with gas powered ovens here....)so I suspended that mighty halo from the ceiling and positioned my leaves on the chickenwire ( previously bought to make crab cages) which was made into a table with some beer bottle boxes (I think a picture would explain this more fully). However, my mighty lamp soon guzzled one light bulb after the other..... not quite sure why but we think it’s cause the housing is not entirely airtight hence the dust burning on the bulb causes it to overheat... just an idea... Anyhow, managed to dry the last two batches! Only one more collection left yihhaaaaa!
While being in the grooves we are encountering many weird and wonderful creatures such as the “cotton fungi”, green flat snails, warty snails and all kinds and forms of other snails, surfboard spiders, the almighty mudskippers (some are really really giant!) and of course all sorts of crabs, hermit crabs, graspid crabs etc etc. in terms of big animal wildlife there are mainly the birds only, such as the kingfisher, the fantail bird and the olive backed sunbird. Haven’t managed to track down that elusive fishing cat yet... not that it would live here with all these mangrove dogs running about  ohhh and the Lepidoptera and other creepy crawlies!! Very tempted to collect every one i come across but since most of them are still alive I feel a bit bad... hence i wait for them to die and collect carcasses....
So much for the mangroves! One of the other highlights since we’ve been here was the trip to Iloilo, well not the trip itself exactly ... we took a 3 am minibus and the driver was of the opinion that because the roads were empty he had to exploit that situation and race along that windy bumpy road..... Iloilo is a lot larger than our provincial Kalibo. Quite a busy city and has already lots of modern shopping malls (the best Kalibo has to offer is “gaisano” where all the girls look the same and you get stared at as a foreigner). We were greeted by Annie’s daughter and niece who took very good care of us for the following two days (don’t think we could have done without them!) so after catching up on a few hours sleep we made our way to SEAFDEC (Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center) where we were supposed to meet the legendary mangrove scientist Dr Jurgenne Primavera! However i got the details wrong and we were actually supposed to meet her in her office in town.... :P She’s brilliant! I was so impressed! Got her own little office and several people working for her (poor guys had to suss out so many of our requests). She gave us a bit more insight into the grooves and the socioeconomic structure surrounding it (especially the situation at Kalibo, although that goes faaaar deeper). Spent over two hours in her office just chatting away and listening to years of experience. Would have loved to take her to kalibo for the remainder of my project and tell me what to do 
Another prominent mangrove scientist i was supposed to meet was Dr Junemie Lebata. So again i took the trip to SEAFDEC (which is quite a distance out of Iloilo) only to find that she was out that day...  BUT marvin and me got an exclusive tour of the research station! For the first time I met (and even touched!) a Sea cucumber, all sorts of seahorses and my absolute favourite : Abalone! They are amaaaaaazing! Like a big snail but a flat shell and really powerful and quick muscle.
Ohh man! That’s rather a lot! And it’s already 23:30 arghhhhh! Got another one of those 5am days .....
Well, thanks for reading this far and i might update some other time (well, considering how long it took me until now....) the next episode might feature my future trip to negros or sibuyan or Pandan. Beating that cabin fever!! We’ll see...
Lx