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!
Beyond the murky waters of Changi, one would be able to catch a glimpse of the colourful sea fan garden during super low spring tide! On 30 April 2017, I visited a stretch of Changi that I've not surveyed for years.
Other than having the joy of finding high abundance of sea fans, we also enjoyed a lovely sunrise, finds of commensals on the sea fans and other interesting critters such as the Sea Apple sea cucumber and the Armored sea cucumber.
We visited Kusu Island on 29 April 2017 and checked out the reefs. Am glad to see many of the corals survived the bleaching period last year and that the reef is still thick at Kusu.
Many fantastic finds such as featherstars, many heart urchins emerging from the sand at the lagoon and my first sighting of the Marlinspike Auger Snail (Oxymeris maculata)!
It's our first predawn low tide trip this year and on 28 April 2017 we visited Tanah Merah shore. The first exciting find of the trip would be the stonefish!
I later also chanced upon a Knobbly sea star. The corals are still ok though some are dying or dead due to the previous round of coral bleaching. The seagrasses invaded upstream of the canal where we also found tiny white sea urchins and other interesting finds.
On 12 Feb 2017, we visited Big Sister's Island during an evening low tide. The tide didn't go down as predicted and we were stranded on the high shores. Nevertheless, the team managed to find some exciting critters both beneath rocks and above ground.
Two weeks after Chinese New Year, we are out on another evening tide to check out one of our favourite shores: Cyrene Reef!
Cyrene Reef is ringed by petrochemical plants on Jurong Island and Pulau
Bukom. It is also right next to the container terminals on Pasir
Panjang. Cyrene Reef has one of the best seagrass meadows in Singapore
and its seagrasses are home to lots of marine life!
It's CNY Day 3 and we are at the reclaimed shores of Seringat-Kias, which is also connected to Lazarus Island.
After 6 years, we are finally back on Terumbu Selegi on CNY Day 2!
It's the Chinese New Year again! And that also signifies another round of low tide adventures. :)
On 6 Aug 2016, we visited Terumbu Pempang Laut for a coral bleaching check. However there are not many corals on this shore as compared to the rest.
On 23 Jul 2016, we visited Semakau East to check out the coral bleaching situation.
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.
With permissions from National Parks Board, we are back at Pulau Sekudu to do our annual survey. Otherwise, this island is actually out of bounds.
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?
I'm back at Chek Jawa, one of the two seashores that started my passion in marine life (the other is Tanjong Rimau, Sentosa). It's like visiting your friend that has been there all along through different seasons. That applies to both the shore and myself. We were able to visit this shore with permission from Nparks.
After 6 years, I finally set foot at Pulau Tekukor again! My last survey here was in 2010.
Most of the time,we will be exploring the seagrass and sandy areas of Cyrene Reef as they are thick with critters. On a super low tide, we decided to dedicate a slot for Cyrene Reef to look at the reef edge. However, it coincided with the coral bleaching period and it became a survey to monitor the extent of bleaching.
Beting Bronok (BB) is one of our last northern reefs that is home to a wide variety of marine life that we don't see on our mainland shores. We only visit BB once a year to do our annual survey and noticed over the years that the reef is deteriorating.
One of the first few shores that shore lovers would visit definitely includes Changi Beach.
I have been visiting the reefs off Tanah Merah since 2009 and it continues to be the best mainland coral reef despite being a reclaimed shore. It has suffered from the oil spill and coral bleaching period in 2010 and after about 6 years we are facing yet another coral bleaching period this year.
