BB specials

Beting Bronok (affectionately called BB), is a special reef that is rarely visited. It is only exposed at very low tides and remains submerged most of the time. There, we often encounter things we seldom see on our other shores.

We landed on BB in a steady drizzle. Fortunately, the boatman landed us on a nice firm portion of the shore, and we didn't have to swim to shore like the last time. This was quite impressive given that it was 3am and totally dark.

The water quality has much improved and was generally clear. Despite the constant drizzle there were plenty of special finds (marine creatures generally don't enjoy drizzles either and hide from freshwater).

While soft corals of the usual pink to purple varieties are everywhere, these ball-shaped soft corals are seldom seen on our other shores. On BB, they dot the shores like lost tennis balls. Though some have grown much larger!

All kinds of tiny animals from small white cowries to little crabs live in these soft corals. But they were obviously hiding from the rain this morning.

This beautiful Cabbage coral (Trachyphyllia geoffreyii) is actually a single large polyp the produces a convulted, fluted skeleton. It's usually a lovely flourescent blue-green, but the rain has made it grumpy and dull. BB is the only place where we see it regularly.

BB is the only place where die-die-sure-can see feather stars. These relatives of sea stars are usually only seen by divers. But BB is littered with these small delicate animals in shades of blue and black.

The multi-coloured Sea apple sea cucumber (Pseudocolochirus violaceus) is not an apple or a vegetable! It's an animal related to sea stars and sea urchin. Often bright red with touches of violet and bright yellow feet; its colours advertising its distasteful nature. Several were seen BB today, but they are rarely encountered elsewhere. This particular one was obviously not enjoying the freshwater bath. Underwater, it extends its delicate feeding tentacles like a colourful flower. Elsewhere on BB, there were a variety of the orange sea cucumbers, purple ones and a Sandfish sea cucumber that we often see elsewhere.

Strange cowries are also regularly spotted on BB. The golden-black one is the Onyx cowrie (Cypraea onyx) often seen on some of our other undisturbed shores. The pink one we really have no idea what it is!

The Blue dragon (Pteraeolidia ianthinia) is seasonally common on BB, and sometimes also seen on our other shores. They are also regularly seen by divers on our reefs. There were lots of them crawling all over BB, like little animated electric blue hairy rugs. Of course various other nudibranchs were seen as well. A strange fugly one and a very large one that looks just like a piece of dead coral.

BB is the only place we regularly see the magnificent Bailer shell snail (Melo melo). Listed among the threatened animals of Singapore, this large snail (about 25cm long) has a handsomely striped body. It is a burrower and hunts buried prey such as other burrowing snails. Sadly, it is often harvested for food and its shell made into silly things like ashtrays.

BB is also home to an array of sea fans, big red sea stars, multi-coloured sponges and strange sea anemones.

It was a short tide, and a very soggy bunch ended the day on the shore even before the sun rose. We're quite glad that BB is still very much alive and well on the way to recovery from the effects of nearby reclamation.