Reefy splendor of Northern Semakau

Five years on and I'm back to survey the reefs of Northern Semakau with the intrepid team on this last predawn intertidal survey of the year. The last time I had a good look at this stretch of shore was in May 2008.

Situated opposite Terumbu Raya (also known as the Great Reef), this stretch of reef at Northern Semakau is full of life with lots of corals, anemones, fish, sponges etc etc. It looks like an underwater garden from this shot through my underwater camera.

A glimpse of the glorious beacon area at Chek Jawa

We are back at Chek Jawa on a predawn survey and focused on the coral rubble near the Chek Jawa front beacon. We were here last month but the tide was not low enough to document what lies out there.

The tide went out extensively and we were able to survey the coral rubble beyond the beacon itself. So how is this fragile but also richest stretch of Chek Jawa shore doing?

Surprises from Sekudu in not-so-low tide

Though the tide was not so low, we still stumbled upon several surprises on our final predawn survey to Pulau Sekudu this year! It was worth waking up for this 3am morning trip.

One of the surprises would be to find the source of the stray lone Common sea stars that we sometimes see on Sekudu. There was many of them found in a particular area and many of them are mating! This is a good sign. :)

National Day field trip at Pulau Semakau

We celebrated Singapore's 48th birthday at Pulau Semakau on National Day! And it was an awesome field trip because of the many spectacular finds.

We were also blessed with good weather despite of the unfavorable weather forecast. The sunrise landscape is simply gorgeous!

Cyrene Reef with Teamseagrass

On 10 Aug 2013, I followed the Teamseagrass members to survey the seagrasses of Cyrene Reef on a morning trip! It was a good weather for us to do our transect for seagrass monitoring. We saw several interesting marine life along the way including rare anemone, blue dragon nudibranch, one pentaceraster sea star and of course lots of Knobbly sea stars!

First living sighting of the deadly cone snail at Cyrene

The title for this blog post is a play of the two contrasting words: living and deadly. It was quite an adventure for us at Cyrene Reef yesterday because we first landed on a stormy and windy weather. Thank God the rain didn't really get to us though our geared-up ponchos were flapping incessantly with the strong wind.

What made the real action happened was when Russel found our first sighting of a living Cone snail (probably Conus magnus) at the coral rubble. He was not aware how deadly it could be!

Seahorse at East Coast Park!

As the tide was low and long, the long march from exploring shores of Tanah Merah was continued with documenting a stretch of East Coast Park.

The top find of the day would be this seahorse found clinging tenaciously on the red skinny sea fan! It is our first sighting of this lovely animal on East Coast!

Seagrass surprises at Tanah Merah

The entire stretch of Tanah Merah is rich in marine life despite the fact that it is part of reclaimed land! It's amazing how life creeps back with time when no one disturbs the area. Two weeks ago, Ron and I decide to have a look at probably the last stretch of Tanah Merah that we have not visited before and were surprised to see lots of seagrasses!

One of the pleasant surprises on this shore would be to find many of these small Tiny red sea cucumbers! This particular one was perched on the blade of the spoon seagrass.

Sekudu survey in the predawn

We are finally back at Pulau Sekudu, a tiny island near Ubin that is within the Chek Jawa Wetlands area. With special permission from Nparks, we were able to document this shore with rich marine biodiversity. My previous trip here was way back in Oct 2011.

As there is no jetty on this uninhabited island, amphibious landing is needed. This time we have the both Mr Chua and the son of Mr Chua (also Mr Chua) who provided the transport and assistance so that our landing can be firm and safe.