MAP has been working hard over several months to get the Dept for Marine and Coastal Resources and other local authorities to agree and support a rehabilitation effort in their particular pond and to allow the use of a tractor. There have also been protracted land tenure issues that have still not been fully resolved and consequent tension within the village.Most of the village has been very supportive of MAP’s intended rehabilitation effort, and on 9th-11th August they put they hoes where their mouths were and got digging, as permission for tractor use in a mangrove was denied. 30 villagers helped, working 8-11.30 and 2-5pm in sun, rain, high tides and everything in between.
Essentially the effort was to dig into the top of the mud walls and re-slope these walls so that they were more horizontal, thus providing a much greater area at the appropriate height for mangrove growth, and particularly Nypa palm. Nypa is useful to them at they make with great skill cigarette papers and roof sections from the leaves.
Always enjoy my trips with Jim and Ning to BTN, where I perform several roles, including jester, driver, bag carrier, official photographer (yes I know Shell, Benjol I wish I had your clicking skills) and help with some of the technical aspects. Measuring the change in soil heights allowed us to ensure we had regraded to about the right height. 
And we answered the question about salinity with a salinity prism – almost fresh water. Much was learnt about they way the villagers liked to work (altogether in one group and the same time on the same bit of pond) and how much we could do in three days (a lot). Inspiring and humbling to see just how strong some of the fine ladies of Ban Tale Nok were, despite the 33 degree heat. The homestay is always an education, and they always always cook well.
The other task at this pond was to widen the sluice area to allow the water to move quicker and drain better. What was not attempted at this stage was to deal with the pond floor. 
This is soft sloppy mud and needs to be channelized, as is happening at BLD. Tune in after Ramadan when we return for more fun.
The tricky part is digging around the sluice gate – the lowest part of the site. Even at low water this is often part submerged, and water from the rest of the site slowly drains out via here, necessitating digging underwater. In itself, digging in knee-deep water is not a problem when widening the sides but it’s hard to judge the evenness of the deepening as the water is never clear. However digging is impossible if the water is too deep (below, where the water at Hill T would be chest deep), or if a lot of water is still draining out of the pond due to tide or rain (Thursday 23rd!). 
So when the opportunity arose, channel 2 near the gate was widened and deepened. If not, other parts of 2 and 2C were excavated. This included extending 2C further east another 6 meters and making 2C much more curved, by widening more on the opposite side to the nearest hill, which are placed on alternate sides of the channel being dug (below). 
All this digging has produced more hills. We are at ‘X’, almost out of letters. There’s been a lot of activity at home therefore to make enough signs to label the new hills, produce signs for hills have not been labelled to date and replace broken ones. White cardboard-like plastic has been used and permanent markers.
Bang Don and I both thought that these dibblings would die as the soil is saturated and sloppy.
Hill O has received one R. apiculata volunteer, but no buds yet. Test Planting Plot 3 (green sign) has been established with Bruguiera cylindrica and Ceriops tagal. Again a sample will be tagged next week and monitored for progress, to compare against Hill L and Hill E respectively. Hill F also received B. cylindrica dibbling and Hill Q R. apiculata. Hill N has received a Nypa seedling that has been grown in a mix of soil and clay in my own garden. 24cm tall its progress will be monitored but so far it looks happy in its new home.
So what will happen in the next couple of weeks? Channel 2 will be completed. On Friday I tried to dig out a big piece of mangrove trunk that ran across the channel, partially blocking it. At one end is Hill X. So by digging I tried to find the other end, but to no avail – the end remained buried in the mud. So the log will be sawn in two and removed that way. More species will be dibbled, as they come into season. Avicennia sp of all three species are now available, and there are two Xylocarpus granatum in my garden at about three feet that will be transplanted onto their own hills. Watch this mud.
First we took a boat trip round the estuary mangroves. To the bemusement of our regular boatman Bang Non we pulled in at many places to look at trees, pull off leaves, head-butt bulbous fruits and photograph flowers. [That low scrubby bush was Brownlowia tersa, Claudio. Sorry.] 
Then to lunch. Monica is happy to indulge in all Thai foods but Claudio is less catholic in his consumption... unless we were in an Italian restaurant, of which Krabi has at least three good ones. Lunch thus became another Italian lesson of slow eating, delicious food and tiny coffees. The meal concluded we headed to the site at Bang Lang Da.
We also discussed the idea with Bang Don of trying to combine crab fattening in semi-submerged boxes in the pond. Traditionally combining the two properly has been tricky as mangroves need a daily flush of water, where most crab ponds have impounded water. Watch this blog.
At the end, Claudio looked at the site and the digging and in deliberate and perfect English said to me, “You are a mud lobster!” From anyone else this might be an insult. From Claudio it was an honour as well as being perfectly true as 
Dinner was at a Thai restaurant called Gotung. Claudio performed his dinner table trick of eating raw spring onions in lime juice as way of adding a bit of oral aggression to fried rice.
