Breathtaking trip to the Lost Coast

It's almost a miracle to enjoy both a rain-free weather and a breathtaking landscape view of the shore and the blue skies during our annual visit to Changi East, a shore which we call it as the Loast Coast. Many thanks to Travis for first introducing us to this place!

In this remote shore tucked at one corner of the huge piece of reclaimed land, we get to enjoy a rare landscape scenery where we can see the horizon without much obstruction. So what lies there on this seemingly boring and lifeless reclaimed shore?

There's lots to discover! At many parts and crevices of the shore, one can find lots of animals from snails to anemones to echinoderms etc etc... Here's a photo of the team working hard to document the marine life on this shore.

This Fig snail (Ficus variegata) with a pinkish body and a pear shaped shell was not as commonly seen on this shore in the past as compared to this trip. We saw many of them!

And of course, this is the shore in our local waters where you can find the most number of Grey bonnet snails (Phalium glaucum)! Most of them were tucked underneath sand like the fellow on the left.

Ivan shared with us his find of what looks like the Ball moon snail (Polinices didyma).

What is so special about this moon snail is that it is super huge! It is about the size of my hand!

Marcus found the Remarkable sea cucumber (Holothuria notabilis) which I think is a first record for Changi East.

Ria managed to find the special unidentified Astropecten sand star (Astropecten sp.) which we have seen once before here last year.

It is much larger than the usual Astropecten sea stars and it's underside is orange!

The most special echinoderm find was this pink sand dollar that looks somewhat like the Keyhole sand dollar (Echinodiscus truncatus). I have never seen this before!

Here's the underside of this special sand dollar.

And a comparison with the usual Cake sand dollar (Arachnoides placenta) shows that the pinkish one is much prettier.

There were some anemones such as the Haddon's carpet anemones (Stichodactyla haddoni), Tiny carpet anemones (Stichodactyla tapetum) and the Plain sea anemone though they are not exactly abundant on this sandy and clean shore.

Strangely, I came across this lone sea pencil which comes in numbers on sandy shores of Changi. 

Dragonets such as this well camouflaged Smallhead dragonet (Callionymus erythraeus) are fascinating bottom-dwelling fishes. When resting, most are buried in the sand. They pick off small animals from the surface with their cute pointed, downward facing mouth.

There was this part of the shore with a slight bloom of seaweed which added some colour to the plain sandy shore.

And of course, Chay Hoon meticulously scanned through detailed parts of the seaweed and she was rewarded with many of these special slugs which she has not seen for 7 years. This Tendril slug (Lobiger viridis) has a green shell and four long 'fingers' sticking out of the sides of its body that look like tendrils of a seaweed.

Ria also found a cartoon slug... the Moon-headed side-gill slug (Euselenops luniceps)!

I shall end off the blog post with some postcard quality photos of the shore.

The mountain at the background belongs to Pengarang, Johor.

Not too sure how long more will this shore exist as reclaimed shores and usually short-lived. As of now, we shall enjoy what we can find and hope that it will stay for as long as possible.