Pongal at Point Calimere - the mangroves of Muthupet

Muthupet is a huge lagoon to the west of Kodiakarai, where we were camping.  I learnt from this article in The Hindu, that Muthupet is ten times larger than Pichavaram (?, huh?  really?).

....But Sunderbans and Pichavaram are the largest and second largest mangroves in the world, aren't they?  So I wonder what that article was referring to.  I looked them both up on Google maps, and discovered that the Muthupet lagoon is huge, but only 4% of it is mangrove according to Wikipedia.   Pichavaram, on the other hand has a much more intricate and widespread network of canals, and the mangrove area is much larger therefore.

So I guess the article was referring to the lagoon size only.

Mangrove ecosystems are fascinating - the salinity of the water as fresh water meets sea water, the adaptations of the flora to these natural conditions, the tidal up and down.  These mangroves are wonderful natural barriers against storms and tidal waves too.

Leaving the canals

The tributaries of the Cauvery that flow into the lagoon before emptying into the sea can be seen in the map below, as also the worrying spread of salt pans to the north.

How do salt pans adversely affect these intertidal ecosystems?  They increase the salinity of the area isnt it?  In a regular mangrove, high tides will bring in salt water, evaporation during low tide will increase soil salinity and the high tides will bring in water to flush it out as well, so the salinity is in a range.

I guess if more and more salt pans are created than salinity of soils only increases, and there is nothing to mediate and regulate the salt levels?

View Larger Map

The HUGE lagoon - shallow but wide

 
It was wonderful to be out in that vast expanse of the lagoon, once we had navigated the canals that take us there.  I wish we could have just drifted in the waters, without the sound of our noisy outboard motor, but that was not to be.

Let's just rewind and recall that entire day.

Uttara writes about Muthupet

I think MNS should be renamed MTCFS (Madras Tea-Coffee-Food Society) because everyone seems to love their food and caffeine.

Day 2. 14th January. Saturday. 5 am

We set out in the 3 vehicles to Muthupet. We were going to the mangrove forests. The journey took more than an hour and a half so there was time for everyone to sleep a little longer. A little while before reaching the destination, the vehicles stopped for tea and vadai. But I can’t tell you anything about the food because I, like the others in Tempo Traveller#3, refused to get off the bus.

(Me:  I got off and I must say the vadais were excellent, and so greedy and self-absorbed was I, that I overlooked getting some for the rest in the tempo - sorry girls and guys!)

When our bus finally reached its stop, we got off and walked towards the bank of a small river where 5 boats were docked. We occupied three boats in total, each boat holding about 11 people excluding the two men who did the steering (actually only one controlled the propeller/rudder while the other sat in the bow).

(Me:  By this time, Rags had worked himself into a fine frenzy about not knowing how to swim, shaking hands and saying final goodbyes, with nice-knowing-you exchanges!  And our dear Arun slunk away and refused to climb on!)

The people in the boat I went in, a blue boat, included Kedar, Ambika aunty, Chandrasekar uncle, Preston uncle, Venkat uncle, Dr Alaganandam, Raji aunty, Hemal aunty and Vishwanath. The journey along the river took a long time. The vegetation by the water’s edge slowly changed from Prosopis juliflora to mangrove.

Spot the Pied KF in the Prosposis.
(We also saw a black-capped KF!)

The boats cut through the water just as the rivers had cut and split up the land into numerous pieces. Along the way we saw many kingfishers, cormorants, brahminy kites (these were so common, it was starting to get annoying) and gulls flying in the sky and diving and swimming in the water.

A dove eyes us curiously from the mangrove

A bobbing cormorant

Everywhere cormorants landed on the water and after paddling a bit, they dived in and soon reappeared quite some distance away. Everywhere in the trees there seemed to be a nest. Everywhere there were pied kingfishers sitting on a branch, hovering in the air and then plunging from a great height into the water. Everywhere gulls flapped and flew about. Everywhere there were birds.

The board walk fiasco

In the end we reached the board walk that went through the mangrove forests. So the boats were docked and we got off onto wooden planks and walked till we reached a hexagonal shelter (built off the ground where the slush and the breathing roots were) with benches all along the sides and a sloping roof and open on the sides. When we looked out into the forest at the back of the shelter, there was a sorry sight awaiting us all.

The boardwalk was in a dismal condition. Most of the planks were broken and were lying around on the soil among the roots. Somebody had taken the trouble to build this elevated boardwalk but nobody seemed to care about maintaining it. It was quite disheartening.

What a shame!

To see how it looked in 2005, click here.

But we couldn’t stop now. There was only one thing left for it now and that was to walk in the mud. Of course, this meant that the enthusiasm that had hung in the air instantly vapourised. A lot of the people like my mother, Rags uncle, Suresh uncle, Chandrashekar uncle, Kirthana, Jayamurthy uncle, Dr. Ravi, Ramanan sir, Vishwanath and Raji aunty took the smart choice and decided to stay back.

Then there was the second category of people like Ambika aunty (and Hemal!)  who walked the first few steps and wisely decided to stay back.

A closer look at the Avicennia aerial roots, which help the
plant absorb oxygen from the air

Last but not least there were always people like Kedar, Vikas, Prasanna aunty, Preston uncle and Venkat uncle who were the adventurous kind who did not chicken out even when they found out they would have to go through the swamp barefoot! We started off through the marsh, threading carefully between the roots and the dangerously slippery-looking areas. Things went wrong almost at once, when Kedar slipped and fell in the mud, luckily for him, not face first. After that, everyone treaded carefully, holding onto anything to steady themselves, even other people.

The mud was squishy and squelchy and the water was grey.  Some of the planks that had broken off the walk and fallen into the water were laid out like stepping stones and walking on them felt much better than walking in mud that was under water too dirty to see what you were stepping on. The only problem with the wooden boards was that they would abruptly sink when your feet landed on them; sometimes the boards were unexpectedly unstable and tilted all of a sudden, and sometimes the water hid the sharp nails hammered into them, causing your feet to experience an acute sharp pain. So it was always a relief when we once more got to the usable sections of the board walk but they never lasted long and we had to tread through muck again. The board walk was also not as long as we thought it was though we couldn’t go till the very end because we’d probably have had to wade through waist deep water at the very least.

Only two birds were spotted on the walk, one being a rose-ringed parakeet. A call was also heard though I don’t remember what heron Vikas said it was. With the end of the board walk in ruins, there was nothing in for it except to return to the little shelter where the rest were waiting. Again the dreaded journey through mud resumed and everyone had to taken precautions (nobody wanted to do a Kedar). Once at the shelter we first washed up our feet and then boarded our boats once more.

Preston and the "sea horses"

The lagoon proper!

We sailed out to a wide open region where a lot of fishing was going on. There was a man who looked like he was riding a horse, Venkat uncle pointed out. His posture was just right. But Ambika aunty was skeptical because the horse would have had to have been fully submerged in the water. It was a sea horse, Preston uncle explained solemnly!

"See they are trained to breathe through a tube, and can you see the reins in his hands.  Look, did you just see the tail swish?!"




There we turned around the boats away from the man on the “sea horse” and made for the place where the vehicles were waiting for us. It was closer to noon and none of us had eaten breakfast. Once at Muthupet, we found the eatery we were searching for, Muthumani unavagam, and we ate breakfast there. There were dosais and parottas to be ordered. As usual, all the members with their large appetites wolfed down their breakfast in seconds.

The plan after breakfast was to go to a birding spot some 6-7 km away.

Next up - Udayamarthandapuram sanctuary.

Further readings

India's Mangrove cover, up.

Pongal at Point Calimere - beachcombing with the camera

The sand at the saltpans

The beaches and saltpans of the region are a beachcombers' delight.  The sands were strewn with shells, and I was taken back maybe fifteen years, when the beaches of Thiruvanmyur would be like this!  Sadly, they are combed so heavily these days, that we only see small, broken shells.

On the beach sands, near the Chola lighthouse

I have not systematically looked at this whole class of snails, clams and molluscs and this trip was a first, as I looked to understand about these marine creatures.  They could be univalve or bivalve.

So, we all indulged in virtual beachcombing, photographing all the pretty, colourful, unusual, large shells that we saw.   I have tried to match my notes/names with the pictures I took - I hope I am correct, please do point out if I have wrongly identified.  (Errors, if any are mine and not Uttara's!)

The waters near the boat jetty

At the waterfront

Uttara's account, which started here, now continues:  

A dead starfish.
Wonder what they do with them?

...Then we headed further south to the boat jetty where we saw crabs and star fish left behind from the day’s catch. Later we headed further away from the fishing boats to a quieter spot where we just roamed about, picking shells of all kinds and pestering Preston uncle with questions about each one which he patiently answered. 

The puffer fish
Highly poisonous

Among the shells we found were the cockle, clam, scallop, horned, screw, murex, bonnet and olive shells. The other things we spotted were a dead puffer fish (and all puffed up too) and the mother of pearl of an oyster. That evening was extremely fun what with all the beach-combing and shell-picking.

A capiz/windowpane oyster buried in the sand.
Placuna placenta.  Some translucent varieties used to make windowpanes!  (Its a bivalve.)

From L to R - Sundial, Murex, angelwing, spotted tun

Bottom - screw shell.  Above - I dont know, but it was pretty.

Blistering Barnacles!  I learnt that these creatures are crustaceans,
and the creature kind of cements itself to the substrate, and since they live in shallow waters, they have a set of plates which cover the opening when the tide washes out.  (These are dead and so they are open)

More dead barnacles on a branch by the sea-shore.
To see how these creatures, who cannot move on their own, feed,
please click here.

Is this a razor clam shell?

The hermit

Someone found a hermit crab. It was a juvenile, a tiny red little thing in an over-sized, borrowed shell. When we held it up, it scrambled all over the palms of our hands and it took a lot to stop it from falling of. Finally we released it back into the water and watched it being thrown back and forth by the waves until it disappeared from sight.

At the saltpans

The notice that hung on the wall
at our guest house on
marine life that is protected.

(Uttara)


We walked among the very large and small pools of saltwater that had been brought in from the sea which came in from both the south and the east. The large pools of water were separated by man-made mounds of dry soil. While there were a lot of Prosopis juliflora growing around the mudflats (some black-winged stilts were spotted here), marking the boundary, few plants grow in the area itself save for the few small bushes that grew around the mounds. On one side of the mudflats there grew the pooarasam or Portia tree also called Indian tulip tree (Thespesia populnea) which can grow in difficult conditions like near salt water and the sea coast. The land was dry and bare and in places cracked. Though proximity to water resulted in wetter soil, the land still retained its parched appearance.

Colourful spiral horn shells - all over the bunds
surrounding the salt pans.

But looks can be deceiving. While in most places, especially the mounds, it was perfectly safe to walk around, some areas were very marshy and when the earth gives way under one’s feet, it is certainly not a most pleasant sensation for most. I say this from first-hand experience. 

Is this a banded tun shell?  "Tun" supposedly
means cask or wine jar.  Tuns are typical of tropical water
and feed on other small creatures.

L - Frog shell? Or is it a broken whelk?
R - Harp shell - notice the lovely vertical ridges,
reminiscent of the strings of a harp.  The
harp shell creatures have an interesting feature.  They drop a part of their foot when threatened by a crab.  As Mr Crab munches on the foot, our harp will encircle it from the rear, cover it with mucus and sand, and then consumes it!

TL - Paper fig.  Very light
TR - Moon sea shell?
Middle - Brown banded tun
Bottom - screw shell

I had to walk the rest of the way barefoot which wasn’t so bad except there were a shells everywhere embedded in the mud and they were very sharp. You see the sea had come into the saltpans/mudflats and left behind millions of shells firmly held by the earth. The saltpans were as good as the beach for shells. We saw whelk and cone shells among others and again Preston uncle explained about them. Again on the return some of us had to do the usual feet-scrubbing before we could return to the guesthouse.

Conus shell.  The creature inside this is venomous
and its sting is unpleasant, and shoots out on a proboscis
at the narrow tip of the cone.

L - I dont know/Forgot
R - vase shell.  Common on the eastern Indian coasts,
despite their small size, they are predatory!

A scallop bivalve, next to a very small spiral horn.
Very common on our beaches

When we returned, the light had faded from the sky. We gathered in the entrance lobby to begin talking about what had been done that day and what there was left and even some random stuff. Vikas, Vishwanath, Kedar and I mostly yelled at and fought with each other. Then began the daily list-making ritual with the usual “Order, order!” and “Disorder, disorder!”

By the boat jetty, on the last morning
(Me)

A crab eyeballs us, looking
quite angry!

The morning of our departure, Hemal, Raji and me took an early morning stroll down to the boat jetty.  As we neared the beach, we came across a rundown, abandoned petrol station!! Really!  I wonder if it was for the fishing boats?

The fishing village was a hive of activity.  Motorbikes and cars whizzed past us, and we wondered what the excitement was all about.  We arrived to see the auction in full swing - last evening's catch was being sold.  Fisherfolks on cell phones, deals being struck, profits made.  It reminded me of an article I read in The Economist long ago, of the positive effect of the cell phone on the fisherfolk of Kerala.  Maybe this was the reason for traders coming in by car, having heard of a good catch that morning?  We didn't find out.

R - A lovely Murex turnispina,
quite common for our waters

During our four day Pongal stay, we found that the price of fish and prawn rose significantly, almost from meal to meal.  There was some joking as to how local demand was raising the prices, but it turns out, that the number of fishermen willing to go out to sea through the festival drops off, and this results in supply dropping substantially.

Sting rays, at the bottom of a freezer box.
According to the poster in the guest house, this is a protected species.

Turbanidae?

We wandered around, as fishermen repaired their nets, emptied the morning catch, their wives busy cleaning out the ice boxes.  Seeing our cameras and binoculars, one woman wanted Raji to take a picture of her.  Now it has to be understood that my dear friend Raji wants as little to do on such trips other than stopping and staring, so she quickly got out of this duty by asking the woman jocularly whether she wanted to become a TV star.  the lady in question gave a disarming, paan-stained grin and went off.

We got talking to some young men who had just returned from the sea.  Kodiakarai is approximately 50-60 kms from the tip of Sri Lanka, and we are always reading in the papers about fishermen from either country being arrested by the opposite coast guards, for straying into their waters.

An octopus was in their catch.
Among the most intelligent of
invertebrates

Just that weekend, 13 fishermen from this very village had been freed.  One of the young men, more a boy actually, told us that he was one of those who had just returned!  He also proudly said that it was not the first time he had been taken in by the Sri Lankan Navy.  "They lock you up for a week, take all your money, and then send you back", he said in Tamil, with a shrug and a bit of a swagger.

As we wondered why they had to take these risks, one of the older fishermen remarked as to how the size of their catch is falling - there is just not enough fish, and how they need to go further and further.  Sounded familiar - Downeaster Alexa from Billy Joel.

I know there is a 47 day ban on fishing or a fishing holiday around Chennai/TN coast, but that seems to be not enough?  Sustainable fishing is the mantra of the government, but is it working on the ground?  I dont know.

I also found it sad to see "unwanted" fish just being brought in, in the nets, dead and of no use.
More beautiful univalves.

A lovely, abandoned sea fan

On our way back, we saw a cheerful and noisy bunch of rosy starlings in the undergrowth, and its amazing how their chatter can lift one's spirits.

As we got onto the southern most end of high street, we saw various other fellow MNS members sprinting, and so followed suit.  and this is what we saw!

No marine creature this - a retreating wild boar.

Some strange thing
we came across.  (Not the pen!)
That was Hemal's touch of
scientific observation.

Lets hope that we learn and understand about sustainable living, sooner rather than later.

Signing off with this absolutely fantabulous specimen of a Murex (?).
Photo by Mr Ramanan

Up next - Mangroves at Muthupet.