Sea Garden at Benete Bay-Sumbawa Island

Sea fan at Benete bay.

Without warning, suddenly Mr. Dayat, dive master from PT. Newmont Nusa Tenggara (now is PT.=. Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara) pushed me from the ship. Bbyuur .. blub .. blubb .. i sank a few seconds in the sea. I just turned on the underwater camera, while the mask and 2nd stage regulator is not installed in the mouth. body bound BCD / Bouncy Control Device and tank size 100 cuff is crashed at sea level. "Come on, you can solve your problems," he said from the boat. It was lucky, I got this morning diving lesson in the bay of Benete.

Map of Benete Bay.

Indonesia has a coastline of 81,000 km and connects 17,508 islands with a very potential potential wealth of marine resources. One of the marine waters that I visited this time is in the area of ​​the island of Sumbawa - West Nusa Tenggara. Formerly this island is the bottom of the ocean, which by the volcanic movement of Tambora volcano slowly lifting the sea floor into the mainland. Sumbawa is one of the volcanic islands, in addition to its twin brother is the island of Lombok.

Coral at Benete Bay.

Hard coral.

Benete Bay is located on the south side of Sumbawa island . The condition of the bay Benete was damaged by a fish bomb. An unfriendly fishing action utilizes vibrating waves from a bomb explosion in the water to paralyze all types of fish. All fish affected by vibration will float on the surface and the coral reefs will crumble. this is the situation a few decades ago when there was damage to the marine ecosystem.

Under water of Benete bay.

Time elapsed. The idea came to restore the coral reef with the method of reef ball. Giant size balls are made from cement and sand molds that are then submerged in the ocean floor. Comes to the question, where did the coral reef come from.

There are 2 methods to reef ball is overgrown with corals, ie by natural just left and transplanted coral reefs. This is how the reef ball is full of coral reefs. For coral reef transplants, ie by taking live corals and then planting in reef ball we like to plant by way of cuttings. The second way is by allowing naturally the corals to grow by themselves.

Life cycle of coral.

The phylum of Cnidaria is a unique and magical organism that we know about coral reefs. These marine animals are able to breed sexually or asexually. Sexually, the male and female gametes meet into a planula. This is the planet that will hover in the sea into ciliated larvae. If this planula gets a suitable substrate one of them reef ball then he will grow into a polyp or coral reef. Furthermore, root coral reefs are accredited by fragmentation and meet the reef ball, the place where it grows. So look the types of reefs so dominate the corner.

Reef ball in the Benete Bay.

Benete Bay is conserved by drowning the reff ball from a depth of 5-12 m to provide a place for the floating planets to settle and grow into polyps. The growing polyps will fill the big balls on the seabed.

Coral table (hard coral).

Reef ball overgrown with coral table, stretched wide with a diameter of 3 m. Small, blue fishes move randomly, either panicked or delighted with the air bubbles of our dive tanks. The red sea waves as if to give us a coolness on the bottom of the ocean. We kept moving to see one by one the reef balls were planted. If summed up I can say, all the balls are covered by fragmented polyps.

Sea garden at Benete Bay.

In depth 12m I still see the remains of the bombing by the fishermen back then. coral reefs are scattered like an old house ran by wheels. I was fortunate to dive in a location that was once damaged by a fish bomb. On the way home, I was silent at the end of the boat when I saw the coral reefs at the bottom of the water. These gigantic balls are like fields to plant corals that bear fruit.