Hot hot afternoon at Pasir Ris

It was a hot late afternoon where James and I first arrived at Pasir Ris shore to have a look after five months of absence. We were later joined by the others. As it was hot, most of the mobile animals were hiding away from the intense heat to prevent themselves from being fried.


Only the sessile or immobile creatures still remained exposed during the low tide. I think these blue branching sponges are very pretty together with the rock. I have no idea why some ends are white in colour though.

Semakau on a weekend

Weekends are meant to be a time of refreshment and recharge. And I always avoid going out especially to the ever crowded shopping mall. The best place to be will be our lovely shores!


And here I was at Semakau intertidal area yesterday afternoon helping out with Teamseagrass with the monitoring of seagrass as well as help Mei Lin locate the resident giant clam.

It was somehow also a busy day for Semakau with lots of actions going on!

Finally Saron at Tanah Merah

Finally finally and finally, I managed to to see Saron shrimp (Family Hippolytidae) at Tanah Merah! Yes, James and I brought a group of friends to the shores yesterday. The tide wasn't that low but good enough to find lots of fascinating marine life.


This Saron shrimp was spotted among the rocks. It is just so gorgeous looking! The colours and patterns on this shrimp is amazingly cool. Probably the prettiest shrimp that I've ever seen.

St John's Island Guided walk

It's time to set off for a guided walk! It's been three months since I've guided on our shores during low tide. And our destination for the day is St John's Island.


On our way there, the ferry made a turn that was very near the man-made structure where Kias reef used to be before it was buried and reclaimed to be connected to Lazarus for developmental purposes. This is also the spot where we have seen marine turtles before.

Animals on a new Semakau shore

Other than the bountiful corals found on this new patch of shores that we explored for our first time, there are also lots of other living creatures!


One of the most surprising finds must be the high number of Magnificent sea anemones (Heteractis magnifica)! It's probably even more than those in Kusu, where we previously thought has the most number of these anemones on our intertidals.

Plentiful corals at Semakau

Today a small team of us went to a new shore at Semakau for Mei Lin's giant clam surveys. I first found out about this stretch from Ron's exploration earlier in July and his blog captivated my attention. He told me there's several Burrowing Giant Clam (Tridacna crocea) here so here we go on this reef on our very first evening tide after the morning lows.


During the lowest tide, I walked all the way to the reef crest and noticed lots of corals at the edge! It is truly amazing! At the background is Pulau Jong.

Spectacular last morning low at Big Sister

Yes! For our very last morning low tide of 2009, we decided to visit the trip to Big Sister Island. And it proves to be spectacular!

We went to a stretch where it was my first time exploring. Ria wanted to show the giant clam there for Mei Lin to monitor. However, it was probably already covered with the huge extent of seaweed. Thus we couldn't find it.


Nevertheless while we proceeded on, we stumbled upon a stretch full of hard corals that are jam-packed together with soft corals, sponges, corallimorphs, zoanthids etc. It was truly spectacular to still find pristine stretches at Big Sister!