Starry night on Sekudu

Pulau Sekudu, wildfilms' favourite place, is a great way to start the low spring tide season for the year!

It's 4am and we're off!

This small islet off Chek Jawa is incredibly rich and never fails to amaze.

As usual, Chay Hoon and Ron magicked up some nudibranchs, slugs and flatworms. Thankfully none too tiny (I've upped the minimum size to 2cm, since a 1cm lower limit still results in what seems to me, specimens that are impossible to take without a stereoscopic microscope). This beautiful Chromodoris sp. just made the new size limit..

The fishes we love were aplenty: colourful filefishes, small cardinalfishes and this dazzling Diamond wrasse (Haliochoeres dussumieri). Fortunately, we didn't encounter our not-so-favourite fish, the stingray.

An intertidal trip is not complete without an octopus sighting. Fortunately, we are seldom disappointed and usually get to see at least one every trip. This particular octopus doesn't seem to be the usual kind that we commonly encounter. We saw something similar last year at Changi. Perhaps these kind are only more common on our Northern shores? So many things we have yet to learn about our shores.

Our Northern shores are particularly exciting for the wide variety of echinoderms that can be found there. Echinoderms include sea urchins: and the pink pencil sea urchin and white sea urchin were abundant today.

Another member of the group are brittlestars. These seem to be out in force today. In all shapes, sizes and colours. The speediest of the echinoderms, brittlestars are also highly sensitive to light. These tiny creatures slither off rapidly so they are quite a challenge to shoot.

Pulau Sekudu teems with everyone's favourite: the starfishes. As usual, there were lots of big Knobbly sea stars in all shades from red, pink to white. But today,we encountered a sea star we've never seen before!

Luidia maculata has eight arms and is a handsome and fast moving animal. Apparently, it is a carnivore and eats other echinoderms! What a scary sea star!

Today we also noticed an abundance of tiny little bug-like creatures. They infested everything: seaweeds, sea cucumbers, sponges. Including our booties and our gear. It was impossible to remove them.

As usual, sunrise means the tide has come in and it's time to pack up, go home and catch some zz's. Dr Chua Ee Kiam gets the shot with Chek Jawa in the background. I was too tired to even switch lenses..

Low spring tide season: messed up sleeping schedules, endless washing of gear, charging countless batteries. But we LIVE for it! Tomorrow, yet another adventure ...

Want to join us on our trips? Just drop Ria an email at hello@wildsingapore.com. You can come along just to see the shores for yourself, or to help out in the filming of our shores. Season ends Aug 06!