Sentosa's original underwater world

What's on the Sentosa shores slated for reclamation as part of the Sentosa IR development?

Yesterday, I had a look at these shores. It was the first time I'm visiting this area. And at a super low tide. We are seldom at Sentosa at such low tides, preferring to spend these rare occasions on other shores. And when we do visit Sentosa, we usually focus on the area near the Tanjung Rimau beacon.

By now, I should have learnt not to underestimate our shores. Still, I was surprised by the very large growths of hard corals on these shores.
About 8ha of shores on both sides of the cable car tower are slated for reclamation (see media articles about these plans.)

The corals there were particularly large and well formed. With many different kinds growing next to one another.
Besides the usual commonly encountered hard corals of the Family Favidae ...
...I saw two different kinds of mushroom corals.
And large specimens of rarer corals such as Galaxy coral (Galaxea sp.)
Hydnophora sp.
Pavona sp.
and this pretty coral with star-like corallites, possibly Cyphastrea sp.?
Other species encountered included the Anemone corals (Goniopora sp.) , Disk corals (Turbinaria sp.), Psammocora sp., Montipora sp., Pocillopora sp. and Porites sp.

The most stunning were these large colonies of Anchor coral (Euphyllia ancora?).
Each clump was about 1m across, and there were several of them. The ground near them was very soft, so I couldn't get very close to them.

The Anchor coral colonies were very much alive, although at low tide, the long tentacles were retracted into the skeletons.

There large corals were only those seen exposed at low tide. It is possible that there are more that remain submerged in deeper waters.

I also startled a little all-black frogfish! And had glimpses of little reef fishes darting about in the water.

There were stretches of sandy areas between the reef flat and the sea wall. The silty sand flats were dotted with clumps of Tape Seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) and sprinkles of Spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis). There was also a good variety of seaweed.

On the sandy silty shore, what a delightful surprise!
Several sand dollars that I've never seen before!

These animal were pinkish, slightly pentagonal with thick rounded edges, so they looked a bit like angular Marie biscuits. They had long prickly spines and moved quite rapidly. Could these be Laganum depressum? Described in Dr Lane's BP Guidebook to Sea Stars and Other Echinoderms of Singapore as "occasionally collected in trawl hauls of the Southern Islands". This sand dollar is listed as vulnerable in the Singapore Red Data Book. Indeed, I've never come across them before.

As the sun rose and I headed back, what an amazing sight!

In a pool right in front of the Underwater World is a thicket of living branching corals (Montipora sp.). The ground was crowded with colonial anemones and other sedentary marine life. Little fishes were darting everywhere! Nature's own maintenance-free touch pool!


The area of branching corals was quite extensive! Although the corals look dead in this photo, they were very much alive.

Unbenownst to the thousands of visitors who throng the artificial habitats in the Underwater World, right at its doorstep is nature's own integrated resort for marine creatures.

How sad that these living shores will be buried to make way for an aquarium and other artificial marine habitats.

For the latest on plans for the Sentosa IR.

Larger photos of this visit has been uploaded to flickr under the set Slated for Reclamation and assembled as a powerpoint available for download (4MB) on the wildsingapore website.

Joseph Lai has done a great compilation of Coastal Features of Blakang Mati 1884 on his eart-h.com website. Blakang Mati was the name of the island before it was changed to Sentosa.