Cyrene Reef - Land of Sea Stars

I had my first step onto Cyrene reef today.
Cyrene is a submerged reef located in an industrial triangle consisting of Pasir Panjang container terminals on the mainland, petrochemical plants on Jurong Island and Pulau Bukom.

Image from WildSingapore

Pasir Panjang Container Terminal

Pulau Bukom

For submerged reef, there is no proper jetty or docking place for boats to stop. Luckily, we just have to transfer to a dinghy from the main boat to get to the reef.

Marine "Gardeners" of Chek Jawa

At 5am this morning, I left my house for a morning trip to Chek Jawa.
This is not my usual morning shore trip session.
A small team is heading there for manual work to help Siti with her seagrass experiment.

It is my first time travelling to Chek Jawa before sunrise.
Luckily, prior notice was given and the main gate to Chek Jawa was open when we arrived.
While making our way to the pontoon, the sky was starting to light up.

On our way to the pontoon.

Crabby-venture, anemones and snails at Sentosa

This stretch of shore I visited today is no foreign land to me.
Had been here twice but never once have I stopped to observe this shore.
Today I took a closer look at this marvelous part of Sentosa.

The hairy green seaweed (Bryopsis sp.) greeted us when we reached the shore. It was everywhere.

Chek Jawa Guided Walk with Wild Boars, Otters, Hornbills and Snake

It's the school holidays and the families are out to play. The Naked Hermit Crabs had their monthly guided walk at Chek Jawa today. We pushed the walk to the 3rd week for this month because of the school holiday season. Otherwise, our guided walks for Chek Jawa is on the 2nd Saturday of each month.

There were 5 guides for today's walk and we had 70 visitors with us for the walk (yes, I counted... from my photos). We took the group photo in 2 batches since the first group of visitors came early.

Visitors batch 1

Visitors batch 2

Ria and Kok Sheng handled the first batch of visitors separately while Ivan and I took care of the 2nd batch. Ley Kun waited for late comers but there were none.

Hornbills, Wild boars, marine critters and OTTERS at Chek Jawa Shore

Having done guiding at Chek Jawa boardwalk since late 2009, I have never stepped onto the shore before.
Today I got the opportunity to do so thanks to Ley Kun, the Mama Crab of the Naked Hermit Crabs.

Many animals were out and active today at Chek Jawa.
The first animal we encountered were the Wild boars (Sus scrofa) right at the start of the boardwalk.
The piglets still have their watermelon strips on.

Wild boar

They were looking for food for quite sometime here.
Reason: Because of the Oriental pied-hornbills (Anthracoceros albirostris) that were feeding at a tree above.

Find the hornbill.

From the Jejawi tower, we can see the exposed shore of Chek Jawa.

Finally, after so many guided walks at Chek Jawa, I got to see the Oriental whip snake (Ahaetulla prasina) up close. It was hanging from some plant at the plant arch leading to the seagrass lagoon.

Oriental whip snake

There were traces of wild boar digging near the sonneratia tree.

On the shore, preparations have already been done to avoid visitors from trampling all over the place. There were various stations setup to show visitors the marine animals that can be seen on the shore.
There was a Cuthona nudibranch (Cuthona sibogae).

Blue dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina)

Many Garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra) were found to show visitors.

Garlic bread sea cucumber

The highlight of the day for me was not the shore walk but Otters!
A pair of otters were spotted on the shore to the right of the pathway leading to "Chek Jawa Rear" beacon. There have been sightings of otters at Chek Jawa and I finally got to see the wild otters at location. Ley Kun and I spent a good 10 minutes admiring them. Many visitors were also delighted to see the otters at that time.

Are they the Smooth coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata)?

Soon it was time to go and at the hut, we met the wild boars again.
This time the piglets were having their milk break while the older siblings were having a lazy rest.

Milk time!

Lazing around

Back at the Changi Point Ferry Terminal, a very long queue was formed by visitors trying to make their way to Pulau Ubin. Look a the photo to see what I meant.

This is THE bumboat queue.

I wonder what is so special today? Or does this happen every Sunday?