My favourites on East Coast's reclaimed shores

Despite most people's perception that there's not much marine life in Singapore, we do have lots of shores to explore during low tide. And I'm back here checking out two stretches of East Coast after two years since 2014. How are they doing?

Once again, we ended our survey of 2 shores with a beautiful glow from sunrise. Prior to this, we spent some time checking two different stretches.

Checking out the reefy East Coast shore

It's been about 3 years since I last visited certain stretches of East Coast Park during super low spring tide. Yes there's marine life at East Coast! However, they are only exposed at super low tides that do not usually occur much in a year and that limits the number of times we can go down to take a look.

One of my favourite spots would be this stretch that is home to lots of colourful sea fans! Even at the minimum tide, the sea fans are still half submerged and I had to endure the splashes from the waves.

Rich reefs and seagrasses of East Coast shore

We are back at this newly discovered shore of East Coast Park! Despite the fact that the shoreline of East Coast Park is reclaimed, we are always amazed at how life creeps back over time if we do not disturb them.

This time, I decided to explore the other stretch of rock wall which is a lot longer! This part also is home to many huge and healthy hard corals.

Coral garden on the reclaimed East Coast Park

This morning we decided to visit a new shore, something that we have not done for a long time! Thanks to Arjun and Ria, I found out about a potential spot with lots of corals and did a recce before today's survey.

Along the seawall, I was amazed to see thick growths of hard corals growing on a reclaimed shore! Such abundance is not even found in many of our natural reefs.

Colourful shores of East Coast Park

On 14 July 2014, a small team visited East Coast Park at a very low spring tide to check out the colourful sea fans and other encrusted organisms. A sea slug was found! We also popped by another location to take a look at the seagrasses.

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!

Back at colourful shores of East Coast

I'm back at the shores of East Coast Park to check out other stretches of this long reclaimed beach!

And I'm glad to see that many of these colourful sea fans are still doing well outside this seawall. They sure are crowded! 

Birthday Bash at shores of East Coast

It's my birthday and it also coincides with the lowest possible tide of the year! And I was greeted with many of my all-time favourite marine organisms partying on today's trip, which far exceeded everyone's expectation.

We first checked out the legs of Bedok Jetty and were surprised to find good growth of marine life including this large pink sea fan with THREE basket stars!

Sea Fan-tasy at East Coast Park

What a fan-tastic way to explore the sea fan-tasy of East Coast Park on a good low spring tide! Such much about the fan pun... simply because there are many sea fans (and of course marine life) on the shores of ECP. Yes you didn't hear wrongly, there's awesome stuffs even on our reclaimed beaches.

The top find of the day must be this Spindle or False cowrie snails (Family Ovulidae) which probably is Pellasimnia cf. improcera. I have never seen it before!

East Coast shore is still alive!

Yes, the shore at East Coast Park is still alive!

Today at 3am, I decided to go ahead and cycle to East Coast hoping that the incoming thunderstorm clouds from the northwest would go away. I enjoyed a rain-free ride to ECP and just less than 5 minutes of looking at the shore among gusty winds, the huge rain poured.

I waited for more than an hour, alone and cold at the shelter. The weather map does not show signs of the rain easing out. I thought I will be entitling today's blog as "Miserable at East Coast" as I hardly saw anything on the shore yet.

As the rain did not showed signs of stopping, I took out my trusty umbrella and risked my DSLR on the shore for a short while when the rain was not so heavy.

New East Coast shore = New surprises

Continuing from yesterday's long march at East Coast, today we covered another new stretch of Singapore's longest shore. And this rocky shore is home to many new surprises!


The best surprise must be this Batik tailed slug (Philinopsis sp.)! I've not seen it before on our shores though the others had. Never did I expect to find it at East Coast. Of course, this slug was found by our slug lady, Chay Hoon!

Living walls of East Coast

East Coast Park is well known for its reclaimed sandy shores and previously there were visits to this shore during low tide to look at marine life among the sand.


Not only does East Coast have sandy shore that is alive, the rocks near or on the seawall are also full of life. Just like this Sally-lightfoot crab (Grapsus albolineatus) that was found today in the seawall crevice.

Lively East Coast Shore

During my previous post, I shared about the rich sea fan gardens that can be found at the seawalls. As East Coast is a reclaimed shore, seawalls were constructed to prevent erosion of the reclaimed sand along the shore. Bays are thus formed between walls and over time, marine life have colonized the sandy shore.


The special find of the day on the sandy shore by Agnes must be this Spiny sea star (Gymnanthenea laevis).

East Coast is packed with sea fans!

Finally I'm out at the shores again! This time back to East Coast Park. I explored several sites just last month. But since it's the longest reclaimed shore, there are still lots of stretches that are unexplored. I'm glad to have Agnes to join me for this 4am trip. Henrietta and friends, who are camping at East Coast, also joined for a while.

My focus today is to look at the sea fans at the outer edge of the breakwaters or seawalls.


And indeed, I was totally overwhelmed by the large number of
skinny sea fans found attached onto the seawall!

Exploring secret shores of East Coast

Earlier this month, I had a 3-hr cycle throughout East Coast Park to search for secret shores of East Coast Park. How wonderful it is to be able to find a super low tide to explore these potential spots with a small team. And altogether, four shore locations were visited!


I first went alone to check out the rocky shore found previously. Indeed, the now extensive shore during low tide is a typical rocky intertidal area with crabs like this swimming crab (Thalamita sp.).

Searching for secret shores at East Coast

Yesterday, I need some form of a physical exercise so I cycled to East Coast Park! And I tried to kill two birds with a stone by searching for any hidden secret East Coast shores that might be undiscovered, just like Chek Jawa in the past.


East Coast is a long stretch of reclaimed land and it is definitely one of the shores that are under-explored. There was one stretch with lots of gorgeous sea fans but it has since been impacted and destroyed by unknown reasons. Just April this month, we went back to check and dredging was going on there now. Sigh.

What happened to East Coast?

Today at the wee hours, or super early morning, Ria, Chay Hoon and I went East Coast to check out the shore in this last week of super low spring tide of the year. I came with much anticipation to meet the returned sea fans encountered two months ago.

Entering the shore, I was shocked to see the shore covered with silt and mud. It looked and smelled bad. The water was murky as well. Immediately, I went to check the sea fans that were there two months ago but to no avail.


There was this thorny sea cucumber still hanging on to the otherwise rather bad conditions.


It's kind of sad to witness this only remaining tiny sea fan. To be optimistic, maybe there are a few more lying around? If you take a closer look at the silty substrate, you can find the whole ground is covered with greenish anemones.


These tiny anemones are speckled everywhere on the shore. Is this good news?


I've read a journal study on Rocky intertidal communities: past environmental changes, present status and predictions for the next 25 years by Thompson et al. (2002).

It stated that "Siltation will continue to increase due to urbanization of catchments and estuaries, and changes in agricultural practice. This may have considerable impacts at local and regional scales, favouring sediment tolerant organisms such as turf algae and anemones."

It is possible that the increase in silt on the shore favoured anemones that are generally tolerant to these sediments.

Just yesterday, there were new reportings on Pasir Ris water being unsafe for swimming due to high levels of bacteria that are also found on human faeces. The Channel Newsasia reported that "However, authorities said that does not mean the water quality at Pasir Ris has worsened. It is simply because the new WHO standard have now become more stringent."

It was also mentioned that the water quality at East Coast Park is rated as "Good". Given that the new standard has become more stringent and that the "Good" rating given to East Coast, it is weird to see that the shore is now worse than two months ago. Maybe it is because the parameter to test the quality of water depends only mostly on the level of bacteria but not so much on siltation? If so, perhaps the level of bacteria at East Coast wasn't abnormal enough and thus such levels of bacteria does not have any link to the pollutions on the shores. In all, how valid and comprehensive are such water quality tests? Maybe some experts can enlighten on this.

Click to read more about the living creatures of Pasir Ris and East Coast.

Back to the question, what happened to East Coast?

Reference:

Thompson, R.C. et al. (2002). Rocky intertidal communities: past environmental changes, present status and predictions for the next 25 years. Environ. Conserv. 29(2): 168-191

Sea fans return to East Coast

Immediately straight after my exams is a series of very very low tide. This time, Ron and I decided to visit East Coast Park at 4.30am can you imagine. Though we had to attend to morning appointments later, it did not stop us from visiting nearby shores. East Coast is a good choice since it's quite forgotten and I want to check if the sea fans are back or not.

Ria in 2006 reported many "fan-tasy" finds in the wildfilms blog here and here. However, when I checked out last year (2007), there was no sea fan except for a miserable small one.


Immediately stepping into the shore, with memory of the low-diversity of shore creatures from my previous trip, I was stunned to see this leaf slug or also known as Elysia.


There are a number of echinoderms on the shore. Like this thorny sea cucmber that is common at Changi shore.


And on top of this warty sea cucumber is another echinoderm. Was tiny and its a brittlestar!


Somehow, a whelk or snail decided to cross the purplish unknown sea cucumber.


Strangely, we only encountered one Astropecten sand star. But it's a good sign that there might be more :-)


A Stunning find by Ron! A featherstar. Wow. He found his first mainland sighting of featherstar yesterday at Changi and today at East Coast another one. Unexpected find indeed.


A closer look at the central area of the featherstar reveal details that make me marvel.


A pair of Salmacis-looking sea urchin was found too, adding on to the echinoderm checklist to this interesting shore.


Dr Daphne will be glad that attentions are also paid to the anemones. They come in different shapes and sizes. From very tiny wheeny ones to ones bigger than your face.


The carpet anemone I found last year stuck at a bag was STILL THERE. Amazing.


There are also many interesting gobies and also this fish which I don't know what is it.


I saw the uprooted Cymodocea serrulata seagrass and also the Tape seagrass. It seems that there might be a seagrass population in deeper waters which support the life at this shore.


Stumbling upon this mangrove horseshoe crab, I called out to Ron.


He came and check it out, and realized there is not one, but three horseshoe crabs! What's more amazing is that the mangrove horseshoe crab is hitching a ride on the mating pair of the coastal horseshoe crabs.


It's exciting to see the sea fans returning to the shore! There are many of them and they come in different shades of colours.


More sea fans of East Coast!


You can find living creatures on near or on top of living creatures. They live together. Like the thorny sea cucumber spotted among the sea fans.


Ron found also cuttlefish eggs attached to the sea fans.


And the more interesting creatures found on the fabulous sea fans include different colours of brittlestars curling around.


I find the red brittlestars very attractive. In fact, I have not seen them before.


I think this is the main attraction of the life found at sea fans: allied cowries.


That is not all, hermit crabs also seem to love the sea fans. Look at the polyps of the sea fans. Sea fans are related to corals.


It was funny yet sad towards the end of the trip to find this dead octopus, totally white.


Like Chek Jawa, the sandbar area has plenty of tubeworms.

Soon 7am struck and we had to leave the shore since the tide was rising fast too.


Was a long walk to find a cab but the encounter of this jungle fowl sorted of distracted us too. We saw it with its hen and little chicks. Too bad they are very shy and refuse to stay still for us to photograph.

Overall, today was very much better than expected. So much life, at East Coast Park. Will be back :-)

East Coast Park is Alive!

The low tides are here again, this time after a rejuvenating church camp in Malaysia which was really great.

Chose to visit East Coast park this morning since its the nearest to home to cycle to. Siyang had to dive so I was really glad when Geraldine decided to accompany me to cycle there. It is her first trip to the intertidal shore and she did enjoy herself :)


East Coast is not as dead as you think. It's not as bad as trying to imagine the above as sea pen and ball sea cucumber... though I really found these during the trip.


On the walls of breakwater, one can find many oysters (Family Ostreidae). Perhaps this is not the best photo but there are a lot.


I was walking on the beaten shore and admist the heavy pollution from rubbish, I was stunned to find a carpet anemone sitting around a wrapper or bag. It looks well protected this way, perhaps it may be feeling very out of place too.


This mudskipper (Family Gobiidae) was skipping around. They are not snakes or frogs but fishes related to gobies. They have gills to breathe.


Are those yellow stuffs eggs from a snail like those pink stuffs found in Changi? Beside it is the button shell (Umbonium vestiarum).


Geraldine found a sea squirt which are also called ascidians. They are called sea squirts because they can squirt a jet of seawater out...haha. And we witnessed it! They are animals that filter fed plankton by generating a one way current across their interior of the body.


Two jellyfishes were stranded on the beach, and they are most likely dead. Do not touch them with your bare hands because they have stinging cells.


Though I can't find the larger sea fans, I managed to spot the smaller ones. These are not plants but animals like corals and anenomes. They consists of colony of individual animals and they filter feed for food.


Is this a sponge?


Yup, this is a sponge, nicely doing ok in the beaten shore.


Had some fun looking how this crab tries to threaten me with its claws.


Surprising to find this pufferfish, too bad its dead and washed up. At least we know there are pufferfishes around the coast.


My shortcoming is I alway miss out on things smaller than 3cm. Thank God I surprising managed to find this interesting juvenile nudibranch (Chromodoris tumulifera). It is smaller than 1cm.


Isn't it so pretty?? Really made my day.


The other interesting find must be this Grapsus crab which I found at another location of East Coast. It is very beautiful and quite big in my own opinion. Never seen it before! Wow.


Well, East Coast Park is still teeming with life, even with this pair of horseshoe crab that are in the Red list of threatened species in Singapore. They are found by Shuyi's friend weeks ago, thanks for the photo ;)


So can you please don't treat the beach as a dumping ground ok? It's terrible how the marine creatures try to survive in such harsh conditions. East Coast Park has plenty of dustbins so let us be good stewards of our parks. :)