The most adventurous reef in Singapore

On one of the Eastern shores of Singapore, there is a very special place.
To get to this place, it is not as easy as you think.
For most of our shore trips, we just have to do one of the following:

• walk to the shore, 
• take a boat to a jetty, or 
• take a quick dip after a boat ride.

However this special requires special skills to get to the reef - the skill of a climber crab.
I am referring to a coral garden off the sea wall at Tanah Merah.

The annual coral garden visit of this special place is usually done by Kok Sheng a.k.a. the Human Climbing Crab. This year, our Human Climbing Crab (HCC) is injured and a small team comprising of Ria, Mei Lin, Rene and Jocelyne replaced Kok Sheng to check out the beautiful garden.

I was not there trying out the skill of a Human Climbing Crab but I hope this post will bring my readers to know of their "crab-citing" adventure to the coral garden.

You can read about the posts from the following members:
Mei Lin - Psychedelic Nature
Ria Tan - Wild Shores of Singapore

From their posts and status, they sure did have a lot of fun at the coral garden.
Now I kinda regret not going for it. >.<

Singapore's City Reef @ Kusu Island

The shore newbie is out again this morning, for the the fourth consecutive morning shore trip.
Today, I visited Kusu Island.

Kusu Island has amazing reef surrounding the island. Just by visiting the big lagoon, you will be amazed by the number of corals and many other animals growing there with the city's skyscrapers and the Singapore flyer in view in the distant.

You can see CDB in the far distant.

When we were walking towards the shore, Ria warned Jocelyn and I about the big stonefish commonly spotted in the reef. Furthermore, the water near the sea wall were still murky as the tide recedes. With the stonefish in my mind, I decided that I'll wait a while more before stepping into the unknown depth of murky water. Luckily Mr Stonefish decided to go on a holiday and we didn't get to meet him.

Beting Bronok on Venus Transit Day

Today is a special day in many ways.
In one way, it is the Transit of Venus where Earth, the Sun and Venus happened to align themselves in a straight line.

Image from Hong Kong Observatory

At 06:00, where the transit of Venus begins, a team of 12 members were already busy looking at critters at Beting Bronok.

Changi Beach comes to live!

Another mainland shore visit today.
I visited Changi Beach today and there were many things to see on this period of low spring tide.

There were many patched of seagrass but the animals there were more attractive to take pictures of. So some types of seagrass can be seen in some of the following images.

On the shore, there were plenty of white sea urchins (Salmacis sp.) and small hermit crabs running around. As usual, the sea urchin had various types of camouflage.

White sea urchin

Gathering of small hermit crabs

The white sea urchins were everywhere and Sankar was joking that they were trying to follow us along the shore. The many small hermit crabs make use of different types of shell and they move pretty fast.

Eggy, Crabby, Feathery Punggol

Today marks the start of another series of crazy wake up time to check out our shores in Singapore.
A small team visited Punggol Beach on a very early morning.

The Punggol beach I knew was a rocky beach with whiffs of funny smell coming from somewhere.
Never have I expected this stretch of beach to come alive during a low spring tide.
The team covered both sides of the shore from the jetty.

When I reached the shore, Ria was so excited to show this beaded nudibranch (Hoplodoris nodulosa).

Hoplodoris nodulosa