Back to the Great Reef: Terumbu Raya

What a GREAT way to start a GREAT day at the GREAT reef, Terumbu Raya!

Raya means great in malay. Terumbu Raya is a submerged reef off Pulau Semakau and it never fails to amaze me. This is my third trip here.

Octopuses mating at Terumbu Bemban?

Last Sunday, we had a 6am trip to Terumbu Bemban, a submerged reef off Pulau Semakau. As the trip started while the sky was dark and the weather is cool, many creatures can still be seen in action on the shore.

I came across a pair of octopuses with one individual stretching its only one of its arm towards another octopus (quite well camouflaged in this photo)!

Colugo at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

If you have visited Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and read the information signboards, you should be aware that Malayan Colugos (Cynocephalus variegatus) can be found here.

As the title of this signboard suggests, one has to stop several times and stare into the wood to find the colugos. They are extremely well camouflaged!

Underwater garden of Sentosa at Serapong

For my first time, a team of us get to visit another of Sentosa's natural reef off Serapong.

This shore is very much alive and colourful, just like an underwater garden!

A walk around Lazarus Island

My first proper trip to check out the natural shores of Lazarus Island was in Feburary this year.

One of the areas that we visited previously would be the lagoon where there are quite a good number of corals and other reef creatures. The water here is quite clear too on a outgoing tide. Today, we were back and were treated to a beautiful sunrise.

Anemone hunt at Seringat-Kias

It's the weekend and I'm out on the shores again with our sea anemone expert Dr Dahpne and the anemone army. Instead of looking for sea anemones on a natural shore, we headed for the reclaimed sandy shore of Seringat Kias. You are so wrong if you think that reclaimed shores are dead as life does creep back!

Indeed, we found quite a number of burrowing sea anemones in the sand! For identification purposes, we tagged the sea anemones with labels when photographing them. This will great help matching of photos with specimens back in the lab.