Though Lazarus Island has been joined with St John's Island and Seringat, much of the island remains untouched. The side facing St John's Island is real rocky. In fact it is a natural form of foot reflexology. Haha! We went around the entire island during low tide to see how's the shores of Lazarus doing.
This is a long overdue post of our trip to Seringat-Kias last month (Aug 2015) and also last year (Nov 2014) with lovely surprise of Knobbly sea stars (Protoreaster nodosus).
My first proper trip to check out the natural shores of Lazarus Island was in Feburary this year.
One of the areas that we visited previously would be the lagoon where there are quite a good number of corals and other reef creatures. The water here is quite clear too on a outgoing tide. Today, we were back and were treated to a beautiful sunrise.
We were amazed at what we saw at the reclaimed island of Seringat-Kias.
Originally existed as Pulau Seringat and Kias submerged reef, these two shores and Lazarus Island has been reclaimed together with plans to make it as a premium resort for the rich. More about the developments at Ria's wildshores blog.
Who would imagine seeing a large pink sea fan on this reclaimed land?
My previous few trips at Lazarus Island were only at the artificial sandy lagoon connecting Lazarus and Seringat. Many times while travelling to Kusu Island, I would be looking at the natural shore portion of Lazarus which is just a channel across.
Finally, I set foot at the natural shores of Lazarus during this trip. The first stretch of the shore is rather rocky.
In John 11:1-46 of the Bible, Jesus resurrected Lazarus even though he was dead.
In Singapore, Lazarus Island was also dead because part of it has been reclaimed to make an artificial sandy lagoon filled with sand imported from Indonesia.
Time will often give an answer and indeed life has crept back to a lifeless lagoon over the many years. The artifical lagoon of Lazarus is alive! Even at the breakwater which Daniel and I explored for the first time today.
Already hardly found in mainland Singapore, I love the fact that I can still find common sea stars (Archaster typicus) on this shore.
Most of the common sea stars there are juveniles and I also did find adult ones. Looks like they are establishing themselves quite well.
There were many Cake sand dollars (Arachnoides placenta) on the sandy shore but alas I cannot find any rare sand dollars.
There were also several piles of processed sand from this Acorn worm (Class Enteropneusta).
Interestingly, there are also soldier crabs (Dotilla sp.) that look like they are doing guard duty by prowling on the sandy shore and raising their claws when they feel threatened.
Another interesting sight will be the gang of snails having a buffet of this venus clam. Looks like it is really a yummy time!
The shore also has seagrass beds mainly of spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis) similar to those at some Northern shores.
And yes, for the first time I explored the rocks off the breakwater.
The rocks beyond the reclaimed breakwater does seemingly look lifeless.
But I was amazed to find some colours in the water mainly from the seaweed. I did spot few corals in the deeper waters. Beyond Lazarus is actually Kusu Island.
Today was quite a flatworm day instead of a nudi day. Daniel studied nudibranch before and but we couldn't find any nudibranch today though.
It seems to be the season for the Brown flatworm (Pseudobiceros gratus) for we found at least four today. A closer look at the flatworm reveals some orange network structure in the middle just beneath the middle brown line. I wonder what are those.
Daniel was very patient as he explored the rocky area by flipping over rocks to find creatures. His hardwork was paid off with this tiny cute little Blue-lined flatworm (Pseudoceros sp.). It has a little blue circle-dot at the head.
Colonial anemones like the zoanthids were also spotted among the rocks.
Zebra coral (Oulastrea crispata) was found attached on rocks and they are thought to be rather hardy, as they can be found in all sort of shores.
Two of this giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea) were found in between rocks but I reckon they were too high for nemos to reside during low tide.
Among the rocky area, another species of seagrass was found and that's the Sickle seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii). It's good that we can find this seagrass since it is listed as 'Critically Endangered' on the Red List of threatened plants of Singapore.
On a single rock with silt, there were several oyster shells, some I think are still alive.
I guess the find of the day for me personally will be this snail that I've not took notice before. Chee Kong says it is Astraea calcar and they are known to be less common than Turban snails. They have a calcified operculum according to A Guide to Common Seashells of Singapore. Locality of these snails are in southern islands of Singapore.
Today's trip to Lazarus was great, I also saw an octopus though it slipped away as quickly as I noticed it. All too soon, the time is up.
I had to leave soon while Daniel, being a diehard explorer, continued to take a longer look at the shore beside the St John's Island jetty instead as the low tide was not over. He told me he found cowries and hairy crab before I left.
A closer reveals several large boulder corals near the water edge. Cool! I will look forward to look at this shore the next time.
Yesterday, I was back at the reclaimed sandy lagoon at Lazarus Island which I visited one month ago.
The tide wasn't very low but I found many more common sea stars (Archaster typicus) on top of the only two found during the previous trip. It was exciting to see many of these sea stars colonizing this artificial beach.
I only had a quick walk around because the drizzle turned into a downpour. Nevertheless, there were several Creeper snails (Family Cerithiidae),Dubious nerite snail (Clithon oualaniensis), Sand collars of moon snails (Family Naticidae), Horn-eyed ghost crab (Ocypode ceratophthalmus), Spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis), and also many Cake sand dollar (Arachnoides placenta).
What surprises me are several dead tests of sand dollars..JPG)
A closer look at these tests reveal that these does not belong to the Cake sand dollars based on its size and shape..JPG)
As I was walking along the sterile-looking clean white sand on the artifical reclaimed beach bay connecting Lazarus Island and Seringat, something caught me by surprise.
I found a lone common sea star (Archaster typicus) which is adult sized. Why was I so surprise since marine creatures are known to reside in low water level mark areas?
This is because Kias and Seringat (originally are submerged reefs) were connected to Lazarus Island through reclamation that buried the living reefs. Read more about their fates at the wildfilms blog.
More about the glorious original marine life of Lazarus at Dr Chua Ee Kiam's simply green site.
They also created a beach made by thousands of cubic metres of sand imported from Indonesia. The sand was checked for sandfly eggs so that future visitors will be spared the insect's bites, which can be itchy. (from The newly redeveloped St John's and Lazarus islands have beautiful beaches and sparkling waters, by Teh Jen Lee The New Paper 2 Dec 06)
Indeed it is sad that those reefs had to be buried to build a lifeless beach made for probably the rich to enjoy.
Nature is resilient and I was glad to witness this common sea star (which unfortunately is not common anymore and is under the Red list) at the reclaimed beach during a not so low tide.
What was also thrilling were the presence of these pretty dubious nerites (Clithon oualaniensis) which dotted the shore together with creeper snails.
And through these creatures, we can indeed know that our God patiently draws these fine patterns in which that every nerite is unique from each other, just like us human beings. These two are Pamela's favourite patterns. :-)
We only explored the shore for about 15 minutes and before we left, Chee Kong also found another common sea star, this time a juvenile one. Wow.
Interestingly, this one has parasitic snails that the ones we see on top of the plain sand stars (Astropecten sp.).
Great to know that a lifeless artifical beach is becoming more lively! With time and little or no disturbance, they will come back in a way that we can even not imagine, so let us just leave these marine creatures alone.
Just opposite Lazarus is our favourite Kusu Island.
The portion near Kias though is now lined with breakwater seawall, I was told that hawksbill turtles are usually sighted in that area. Surprisingly, Pamela and I saw the turtle at two instances coming up to the surface to breathe and going down again. It was like spilt second! But nevertheless exciting to know that they are around our waters.
