Amazing reef at Pulau Semakau's northern shore

Pulau Semakau, the island where many people know it as a landfill island being filled up by ash of incinerated rubbish disposed by us on Mainland Singapore. Not many people are aware of the flora and fauna beauty of Semakau. On the western side of this landfill island is an intertidal beauty consisting of mangrove trees, seagrass and coral reef along the reef edge.

Map of Semakau Lanfill and nearby submerged reefs.
[Google map by Ria Tan]

The shoreline is pretty long. You can probably walk the whole shore within the intertidal period if you only focus on the walking aspect, do nothing but walk.

Huge sea star and orange flatworm at Chek Jawa

Exactly one month ago,  a small team of us visited Chek Jawa for an intertidal survey trip. During that trip, we covered the Eastern and Northeastern part of Chek Jawa. You can read about my sightings from my earlier post about that trip.

Today we visited Chek Jawa again for another intertidal survey, but we started from the Southern side (in front of House No. 1) and worked our way towards the Chek Jawa front beacon.

Chek Jawa Front beacon

We started off by checking the pillars of the jetty in front of House No. 1 at Chek Jawa.

First step on the land of FROG.

Off the southeastern coast of Pulau Ubin sits a little island. During high tide, all you can see are rocks emerging from the splashing waves, and maybe some land. During a very low spring tide, this island reveals its hidden land full of life.

This not-so-little little island is Pulau Sekudu, or Frog Island. There are no frogs congregating on the island (though I think I heard some croaking going on). Pulau Sekudu got its name from a legend. You can read about the legend from this webpage done up by Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (RMBR).

It was the first time I place my foot on this island. The very first animal that "welcomed" me was an anemone.

Anemone, almost completely retracted.

Updates on Security Barrier at Tanjung Rimau, Sentosa

Today I visited Tg Rimau at Sentosa for a purpose in mind. I wanted to check out on the security barriers placed on this shore and have a visual update since my last visit in April 2013. It was a chilly and windy short walk to the shore, located right next to Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa Resort & Spa Singapore. Even the water was cold early in the morning.

I was rather astound by the sight when I reached the beach.

Tg Rimau with the security barrier visible on the shore.

The security barrier line looked very different from what I saw in April 2013, which I blogged about it in my post here.

Snakey and Galloping National Day at Semakau

This morning's trip brings us to a corner of Semakau intertidal area less explored. Some of the team members are excited about this trip because of some special animals that was sighted on this shore. One of them is the Galloping seastar (Stellaster equestris).

I have never seen a galloping seastar before and I was not expecting myself to be the one to find the galloping seastar at Semakau this morning, but I did!

Galloping seastar, overview

Shouting "Galloping!" out loud on the shore, many of the team members came from all directions and distances to see this amazing seastar. Kok Sheng was the fastest walker amongst them all as this was what he was looking forward to on this trip.

New surprises at Cyrene Reef with Large seastar and Cone snail

Cyrene Reef never fails to surprise us. Seated in a major shipping lane surrounded by the container terminal on the mainland and petrochemical plants on two island, there is always something interesting to see during each intertidal trip despite its location.

What a large Astropecten sp. seastar I found trying to burrow itself into the sand. It is as big has my hand!

Size of Astropecten seastar

Shield bugs, and Monkey and Wild Boar business at Chek Jawa

After a busy series of biodiversity event happening around Singapore in June and July, I am back guiding with the Naked Hermit Crabs at Chek Jawa for the month of August.

As usual, the wild boar troop graciously welcome visitors to Chek Jawa.

Wild boar piglets have grown so big.

Wow! The wild boar piglets have grown so big. I still fondly remember them small and cute with watermelon stripes on their body.