Full of crabs at Punggol shore

There's lots of crap crabs at Punggol where James and I visited this shore on a wee hour of 0430. This also marked the end of the morning low spring tide field trips for 2014!

One of the most interesting crabs we encountered would be this tiny unidentified porcelain crab with a face band in between its eyes. This crab that was found on an ascidian is indeed very cute!

Boat graveyard at Terumbu Pempang Tengah

It's our last season of morning lows for the year before we usher in the evening low spring tides from October onwards.  For our last submerged morning trip with a super early 0300 departure, we surveyed Terumbu Pempang Tengah.

One of the interesting features of this reef is the sunken boat found off the reef in the direction facing Pulau Hantu and Bukom. In fact, this location is marked on the navigation chart as a place where dead boats are dumped and thus also can be called as the boat graveyard.

Coral health check at Terumbu Raya

I'm back at Terumbu Raya, a submerged reef off northern part of Pulau Semakau after 3 years! My previous trip was in Jul 2011. Terumbu Raya, also named as The Great Reef in Malay is home to thick growths of hard corals and its associates by the reef edge.

How is the coral bleaching situation at Terumbu Raya? We are glad to see that most of the hard corals are fine except for some partial bleached ones like the coral on the top left hand corner of this photo.

Simple Serenity at Southern Semakau

Following my last blog post on Southern Semakau entitled "Sunny Sunday out at Southern Semakau", I will continue to use the 4 "S"s for the title for this blog post- Simple Serenity at Southern Semakau. :)

The dawn over Southern Semakau yesterday morning was a warm sight that greeted us as we ended the trip at first light.

Lionfish on Lion City's birthday at Pulau Hantu!

It's Singapore's 49th birthday and the intrepid team celebrated National Day way earlier than many others as we crawled out of our bed for a 3.30am departure to Pulau Hantu!

All the sleep deprivation is worthwhile as the Lionfish made a special appearance on our survey! It is my first time seeing it in Singapore and is likely also the first local sighting on the intertidal shores!

Our first Marine Park on Sisters' Island

With the news release of Singapore's first Marine Park at the Sisters' Island, the two islands have received a lot of limelight. According to National Parks Board, the Sisters’ Islands Marine Park will be a platform for outreach, educational, conservation and research activities related to our native marine biodiversity. The location was chosen due to its variety of habitats including coral reefs, sandy shores and seagrass areas.

For regular trippers who have been surveying the Sisters' Island, visiting the Big Sisters' Island today was more like meeting an old friend despite its new status. :)

One of the iconic features of the Sisters' Island would be the frequent sightings of the seahorses. In fact this is a pregnant papa! For seahorses, the male broods the young in their pouch.

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.