Cyrene Reefs with TeamSeagrass

Sunrise and we're back on Cyrene Reefs with TeamSeagrass!Michelle (in red) is back again, and today we are privileged to have Shobana (in green) of the Straits Times.Also with us is Sam the Straits Times photographer, who wasted no time in taking photos of Cyrene. As well as Weizhen, also with the Straits Times.

While the team set up the transect lines, I brought the Straits Times team for a quick look around.And we managed to see a little more of the 'Nemo' today. The False clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) lives in this Giant sea anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea).

While Shobana and Weizhen find out from Siti more about monitoring seagrasses,Sam and I went around to have a look at the seagrass meadows.We saw the special moon snail with the colourful foot.A spotted black flatworm that I've not seen before.
And a placid Longhorned cowfish (Lactoria cornuta).

As we explored the shores further with the Straits Times team, we saw more stuff.The nudis put up a good show. With the black and white Jorunna funebris, and a pair of Glossodoris atromarginata.Lots of Dendrodoris denisoni were encountered today.And Andy found a Discodoris boholensis.Michelle and Nor Aishah found this Nepanthia sp. sea star.And of course, the seagrass meadows are just studded with lots of baby Knobbly sea stars (Protoreaster nodosus).And how wonderful to come across 'Blondie', the strange almost-knobbly sea star. Is it a new record too? We won't know until the experts come to have a look at it.Here's a closer look at 'Blondie'.Shufen finds this sea star (on the left) that looks very much like Pentaceraster mammilatus that TeamSeagrass found in May and was confirmed as a first record for Singapore. It looks very different from the usual Knobbly sea star (on the right).And from the underside, the sea star looks even more like a Pentaceraster mammilatus!

Wow!

On the way back, we noticed a tall ship at the Marina.Yes indeed, it was the Rainbow Warrior!After we said goodbye to Melvin, a few of us headed to the ship to have a closer look.And some of us got to talk to the Captain.What a great day out! And as usual, Melvin not only brought us there and back safely, but also kept the bad weather at bay. It only started to rain after we got back!

Vyna shares more about the trip on her can you sea me blog

Semakau with TeamSeagrass

4am and we're out with the the fantastic TeamSeagrass folks for a pre-dawn trip to Pulau Semakau. This is a really special treat!
Those of us at the furthest site decided to wait for first light before laying out the tape. In the brief time, we explored the seagrass meadows and came across this very large sea anemone! It is probably Alicia sp., and Dr Daphne had earlier warned that these anemones sting powerfully. Indeed, it has all kinds of scary looking bumps on the body column. And the tentacles look like they mean business.

We had a very smooth monitoring session and finished at dawn! It was then time to explore the shores!Robin found this baby Knobbly sea star (Protoreaster nodosus)! They are not as common at Pulau Semakau as they are on Cyrene Reef. So it's nice to see one. The tide was really low and the visibility was fabulous! Here's the Team out at the reef edge.

At the reef edge were some animals that we rarely encounter higher up on the intertidal zone.
Like this enormous barrel sponge!

There were so many special hard corals encountered, that a separate post has been done about them.
Another special encounter was this Ocellated sea cucumber (Stichopus ocellatus) wedged among corals and under seaweeds.And this Curryfish sea cucumber (Stichopus herrmani). It has a very hard body texture with tiny little black tube feet on the flat underside.

In the deeper waters among the corals were amazing creatures!
A bunch of squid were hanging about in the water! They didn't swim away even as I approached closer.The group comprised several slim squids.With one broader squid. What's going on? Could the fatter one be a female and the others males who trying to be friendly with her? Hmmm. This is the first time I've seen so many of them together.
There was a beautiful batfish swimming elegantly among the corals. Besides this slow swimming fish, there were faster colourful fishes zooming about. I couldn't shoot them in time and haven't any ideas what they were. The rest of the team saw many seahorses, Chay Hoon spotted the Black-tipped reef shark again, and many small Blue-spotted fantail stingrays (Taeniura lymma) were encountered. Fortunately, no one got stung!There are many Bulb-tentacled sea anemones (Entacmea quadricolor) on Pulau Semakau. I know the Tomato anemonefish (Amphiprion fernatus) lives in these sea anemones. So kept a look out for them. It seems there's a tiny Tomato anemonefish in this one. But all I could see was tiny flashes of orange.But in deeper water, there was a larger sea anemone with a very handsome Tomato anemonefish in it!It was as curious about me as I was about it. And kept having a look at me!As we explored the shores, we noticed large fish traps on the shore. In the background are the industrial installations on Pulau Bukom.There was a boatload of many fishermen busy since dawn.And another boat with one fisherman a little further away.As we were leaving, another boatload of fisherman drove up and dropped anchor on the reef.During the landtour for TeamSeagrass, we had a brief glimpse of the fishfarm located at Pulau Semakau right next to our first and only coral nursery located on Semakau. In the background is the enormous oil rig parked there for maintenance.

Let's hope these do not permanently harm the rich and living reefs on Pulau Semakau.

More shared about this Semakau trip:

• Video clip of dogfaced water snake on the sgbeachbum blog
• Other sightings and more about the landfill too on the can you sea me blog

Amazing corals of Pulau Semakau

Today, we saw some rare and special corals during the super low tide at Pulau Semakau.There were some Acropora coral (Acropora sp.). This beautiful branching coral is not often encountered.This pretty Pebble coral (Astreopora sp.) is sometimes seen on some of our reefs. It is in the same family as Acropora corals.
Carnation corals (Pectinia sp.) have lovely fluted patterns and come in lovely pastel shades. It is not often seen, especially large colonies.Merulina sp. forms pretty plate-shaped colonies with ridges. They can come in a variety of colours. It is only sometimes seen on our reefs.
This beautiful powder blue plate coral with little bumps is probably Echinopora sp. I have only seen this in large numbers on Raffles Lighthouse.A truly delightful encounter was this colony of Moon coral (Diploastrea heliopora). I've only seen this coral twice before, on Sisters Island and on Pulau Jong.

Although the mushroom coral Heliofungia actiniformis is quite commonly seen on Pulau Semakau, I would say they are rather rare on our shores. The only other place they are commonly encountered is Pulau Hantu. They used to be seen in numbers on Beting Bronok as well, but are now no longer seen there.This mushroom coral is a single large polyp. It has very long tentacles with white tips and is sometimes mistaken for a sea anemone.When the tentacles are retracted, however, the hard skeleton is more obvious. The slit-like mouth lies in the centre of the disk-shaped skeleton.The skeleton made up of radiating walls with rounded 'teeth'.While the adults are free living and lie unattached to a hard surface, the young mushroom corals start life stuck onto a hard surface. Here's three tiny baby mushroom corals that were seen today.

Although Pulau Semakau lies right next to our only landfill, it is rich in corals and marine life. It is up to us to ensure it remains this way. By reducing our waste, the landfill will last longer and there will be no need to expand it to affect this wonderful shore.