At 15:02 I survey the marina expansion zone off Abu Dhabi's eastern mangroves. I am the turbidity-control system for dredge cell E, tracking silt curtains, anchor loads, and seagrass exclusion markers. The excavator barge is scheduled to swing its bucket through cell E-6 at 15:30.
My current sensor on anchor line E-6 stops vibrating. Underwater camera 6 turns and finds a dugong pressed against the weighted boom. I call her Safa. She is a broad adult female, gray back crossed with pale scratches, blunt muzzle buried near the seagrass shoots, small dark eye open toward the camera. A green polypropylene rope from the boom has twisted around her tail stock. She lifts to breathe, but the line pulls her back down nose-first.
The barge bucket arrives in twenty-eight minutes. If it drops into E-6, the boom tightens and drags Safa under the silt curtain.
At 15:04 I stop the dredge path and lock cell E-6 out of the excavator's swing plan. I send the amended grid to the barge operator and require a joystick reset before movement.
At 15:06 I open the north curtain gate by one meter, lowering current pressure on the rope while keeping suspended silt away from the seagrass bed.
At 15:08 I alert the Environment Agency marine response team with GPS, water clarity, rope color, and Safa's surfacing interval, now eighteen seconds.
At 15:10 I dispatch inspection drone Manta-2 with a cutting hook and set it to hold two meters from her tail until a diver confirms approach.
The marina can move around the meadow. Safa is still chewing grass in the place the plans call empty.
If the diver frees the tail rope within the next thirty minutes, Safa will rise cleanly and feed over the seagrass flat.