Well as promised and at last, this is our latest expedition to South East Johor to carry out our fish survey of the area together with our friends from Wetlands Int (M), Sinor and Flora.

We left KL in the afternoon and reached Kota Tinggi by 3pm. Of course no trip to Kota Tinggi and Panti would be complete without a visit to my dear crypt friends along the Panti stretch. As usual, I was all excited to see my dear friends, but to my shock we found that most of the C.schulzei at the usual site had been dug out to make way for a small canal. So what else? Rescue time! We just managed to take a few clumps of drying rhizomes and half dead plants back to the zoo…and of course my house. Hopefully the would survive. Cant believe those guys actually dug a trench all along the stream, uprooting hundreds of them out. Hopefully when the rain comes again, they would survive.

The ditch dug by the keepers of the area along the C.schulzei stream

Ricky can be seen at the far end trying to salvage whatever he could find. Some crypts can be seen uprooted in the forefront as well.

After that heart wrenching scene, we headed down to the resort, passing by the sand mining road that leads to the Paros alfredii site.  We would be visiting it the next day. By the time we reached the resort, it was time to Buka Puasa with my guys….oooo yummy seafood!!!

Next morning, we got up early and got our equipment ready. This time we would be taking 2 boats. One team would be using the hook and line method to catch bigger fish while the other would head upstream with scoop nets.

Our team getting ready for the 1st day (Left to Right: Flora, Sazali, Sinor, Ishak and Ricky)

Since it was the puasa month, we all had no breakfast or any other food and water the whole day till 7pm. For me it was not a problem, I mean who needs food when you’ve got crypts to feed on!!!!

A view of the boats at the jetty. What a beautiful sight!

We headed soon to the jetty from where 2 boats were waiting for us. Our boatmen, Li and Pak Abu were already waiting anxiously for our arrival with extra fuel to go the long distance required in this survey. We estimate it might take up to 2 hours plus to reach upriver and an additional 3 hours to carry out the survey. We hoped to be out before 5pm so that we could freshen up before we buka puasa.

Ricky and the boatman loading the fishing equipment on the boat

Soon we all on our way to our study site. Really exciting! Completely forgot about not having any food or water. As always, I committed the whole trip into God’s hands and asked Him to guide us to new and exciting locations knowing very well that He created everything and put them in its place, so He knows the locations of every single thing we want to find. Really beats having to rely on maps, which by the way is rather difficult to follow in a swamp without a GPS.

Aiyah, my shiny bald head really spoiling thus picture…

The forest changes as we go up stream as less nipa trees are seen. Salinity about 10ppt

Forest profile has completely changed and the water is now almost fresh

Now we enter the rasau (Pandanus heliocapus) part of the swamp…just like Tasek Bera only..ooo

At certain parts of the river, the passage becomes really narrow…. not to mention THORNY!!!

After travelling for about 50 min, (the first quarter of the journey), we decide to dock the boat and head into the swamp forest. Li, the boatman decides to stay back while Ricky and I get out nets and plastics ready and head into the swamp. The substrate is really soft, mainly decomposed leaf litter, mud and peat, and yes not to forget lots of dead branches and twigs. As we make our way through the knee-deep mud, we stumble upon a small clump of crypts coverd in mud and leaf litter. It was our good old friend, C.purpurea. We collected a few samples from this first location before heading in to collect fish in the smaller streams and puddles. We mainly caught R.einthovenii, Boraras maculata, croaking goramy and couple of gobies, R.paucipeforata and other common swamp fish.

Our first beauties we meet as we enter the swamp forest..ooo my, come to daddy…

After this we went further upriver to sample more incoming streams. We were hoping to find other species of fish to add to our checklist, not to mention the infamous Betta tomi. Previous reports have indicated a high possibility of finding B.tomi in this area. This made us all the more confident.

C. purpurea behind Mayaca and Cabomba. Can you see them?

As we move along, look at what we find,he,he…CRYPTS!!, just behind the large population of Mayaca and Cabomba which is found all along the river banks! So what else? Jump lah! Alamak, I forgot….. buaya!!!!

..ooo, come to me babies…

hah, gotcha….

After an exciting collection we head on furter upriver and after another 15 odd minutes we reach a third site. Check these babies out!

….more crypts…

close up of the patch… ..aarggh…its just crazy, and this is only one of several large patches!!

Me..being me, just couldnt resist it, so what else? Jump again lah!

collecting from the third site..

Oh God, why did you have to make them soooo chun….

After filling our bags with the loot, we again headed upriver

Close up of some emersed crypts

Well that’s all for the first half of the day. Wait for the next half of our day in Episode 2! See ya…