Changi rocky shore in the rain

It's the December rainy season where exploring the shores during low tide becomes more tricky as I need to balance holding both the umbrella and the DSLR camera without getting myself wet.

Nevertheless, the wet weather did not deter Ron and myself from having a look at this stretch of rocky shore at Changi.

I was here for a mission, to find the 'armoured' sea cucumbers but sad to say... no luck finding them. 

Nevertheless, there's still lots of other critters to see on the shore. At certain stretches of the rocky shore, there is a myriad of colours from different types of sponges and encrusting organisms.

With sponges, there's definitely nudibranchs! Today I managed to find two different species. This is the Beaded nudibranch (Hoplodoris nodulosa).

While later towards the end of the trip, I found the brightly coloured Rose nudibranch (Dendrodoris fumata).

The usual Blue-spotted flatworms (cf Pseudoceros indicus) are still there but in much lower number this time as compared to our last trip in June.

A special flatworm sighted in the rain was this Purple-spotted yellow flatworm (Pseudoceros laingensis). It was not very active though as I think it was kind of affected by the freshwater pouring from the sky.

As usual, flipping rocks to check what lies beneath would allow one to find more animals on the shore. On this trip, I seem to see quite a number of this unknown small sea squirt that is purplish pink.

Among the ascidians are several of these Sponge synaptid sea cucumbers.

There are many kinds of sea cucumbers on the rocky shore such as this fat Orange sea cucumber.

I am not too sure what is the identity of the these three white tiny sea cucumbers found underneath rocks.

Just right below the Purple sea cucumber (Family Cucumariidae), can you see a tiny sea star? It is the Rock star (Asterina coronata)!

Rock stars can come in different shades of colours ranging from grey to brown and even bright colours though the brighter colours are rarer to find.

There are many Hoof-shield limpets (Scutus sp.) living under rocks and these limpets are not commonly found on other rocky shores though.

Growing on pillars are many types of beaded-looking anemones and here's a bigger version which I do not exactly know what it is.

This poor Feather star (Order Comatulida) suffered badly under the rain and refused to relax in the tide pool.

There were many Stone crabs (Myomenippe hardwicki) and this particular mama crab is carrying lots of eggs.

The tide did not go as low as expected but I managed to find some Sea fans (Order Gorgonacea) sticking out of the murky waters.

Stranded on the shore is this huge Seagrass octopus that is almost completely motionless.

Despite the rain, some of the fishes are still actively swimming in the waters such as this Estuarine moray eels (Gymnothorax tile).

This solo Striped eeltail catfish (Plotosus lineatus) was swimming back and forth continuously near the edge of the water. I think it is lost.

Ending off the blog post, here's a photo of a cute watercraft / boat cruising across the shore. It looks like a toy submarine to me! :)