On Labour Day holiday, the intrepid team surveyed Terumbu Semakau, a patch reef off Semakau Landfill. The abundance of hard corals have dropped as several ones did not survive the coral bleaching period last year. Nevertheless, there's still good growths of corals at certain stretches. We also saw both the Fluted and Burrowing Giant clams, a special sea cucumber and some pretty sea slugs!
Our final survey for this season of low spring tide would be to check out the coral bleaching at Terumbu Semakau, a patch reef off Semakau Landfill.
Merry Christmas from the reefs of Terumbu Semakau! There are not many good low tides towards the end of the year. It's nice that Christmas coincides with full moon in December, which naturally means low tide to go out and explore on this special day.
The first official intertidal survey of the Southern Expedition as part of Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey took place this morning at Terumbu Semakau.
On 28 April 2013, we did a predawn survey of Terumbu Semakau, a submerged reef off Semakau Landfill. One of the pretty sights of this reef would be the Tomato Clownfish living in the sea anemone. The reef edge is lovely to look at when there is no bloom of sargassum seaweed. Lots of uncommon critters to be found on this reef. We ended the trip when it started to pour.
It's the Sargassum seaweed (Sargassum sp.) season where most reefs are ringed by thick blankets of the seaweed. However, this did not stop us from visiting our southern reefs!
The two videos below show a bleached Bulb-tentacled sea anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) that is still home to the poor little Tomato anemonefish (Amphiprion frenatus). No one knows if the fish will lose its home in the near future.
Tomato clownfish with bleached anemone from Loh Kok Sheng on Vimeo.
Just like other reefs of Singapore, coral bleaching is also observed at Terumbu Semakau, a submerged reef just off the Semakau Landfill. This is the second half of the two trips reef-hopping that we made on the same morning!
At the reef edge, facing Semakau, there are quite a number of corals that are bleaching. We estimated it to be around 60% of the corals.
The last trip of the low spring tide season is a first time visit to Terumbu Semakau!
In the midst of the light rain, we arrived a bit too early with only one miserable rock sticking out of the sea. So the gang decided to wait on the spot until the tide recedes further. This will help prevent any stonefish accidents since visibility is poor with rain. As usual, we have Mei Lin with her cute gu-niang umbrella with frills.
Today was our virgin trip to Terumbu Semakau, a submerged reef off Semakau landfill. The highlight of the trip for me was the ultra cute Tomato anemonefish.
Here is the
