East Coast 'Fan'-tasy

Today I was solo. And thought I should check out the East Coast.

It was recently said that dead pufferfishes and stargazers were being washed ashore there. They must have come from somewhere. And since we've seen living stargazers at Changi, was it possible there was a similar habitat on the East Coast?

I must confess we never devoted a super low tide to the East Coast. Such low tides are rare and are usually spent on other 'die-die-sure-nice' shores.

I walked quite a length of the East Coast shore this morning.

At first, the shores were pristine, white and sandy. Just the way they were built to be. So people could pretend they are in Hawaii, and build sand castles and play volleyball. No nasty mud or annoying rocks to mess up a proper beach outing.

There wasn't much marine life. I disturbed a small quarrel of hermit crabs at a bit of a sand spit near a freshwater outfall. And several small ghost crabs on the steeply sloping shores. They were paler than the ones we usually see at the Southern Islands, and didn't have 'horns' on their eyeballs. Possibly juveniles?

And a poor seapen that got washed up. It still had its passenger porcelain crab, and a brittle star too.

While the sandy shores were mostly bare, at jetties, pillars or some other structure in the water, there would be an explosion of colourful hydroids and other animals.

Perhaps the animals just need some place to cling to and grow on? If there were more such structures, would there be more marine life on the east coast?

The swimming lagoons I walked today were very steeply sloping and the sand very loose and coarse. Even the rock bunds at these lagoons didn't have much of the little crabs and snails that we can see, for example, at the Southern Islands.

After several of these desolate lagoons, I reached a little shallow lagoon filled with small rocks and stones.

It was teeming with sea fans!

From short single strands only 2cm tall, to long branching ones 20cm tall. Like colourful grasses, they sprouted among the small rocks and stones on the shore.

Red, pink, maroon, purple, white and even lemon yellow. It was almost impossible to walk the shore without crushing them, so I stayed off the rocks.

Like a little underwater forest, these sea fans provide homes to a whole variety of tiny creatures...

Tiny brittle stars clasped the sea fan branches tightly with their bristley arms. Even when the sea fan is out of water (photo on left). Submerged in water (photo on right), the tiny white polyps of the sea fan emerge from the bright red common skeleton. The tiny brittle stars are still there, clinging to the branch.

There were several of these white things wound around the sea fans (photo on left). I'm not sure what they are. Sea fans are also homes to a specialised kind of snail called ovulids that not only live on the sea fan but also eat it! Ovulids are often the same colour and even texture as the sea fan. I'm sure I missed seeing a whole bunch of them, but this red one on an orange sea fan was quite obvious (photo on right).

If the rest of the wildfilms crew were with me, with their bionic eyes tuned to microscopic creatures that defy photography, I'm sure we would have found lots more animals on the sea fans.

Little hermit crabs also clung onto the branches, while among branches in the water were tiny tranparent shrimp.

This lagoon was clearly much more alive. The sound of snapping shrimps were everywhere (but I couldn't find one to shoot). There was a Miliaris cowrie, handsomely spotted. These usually come in a pair, but I couldn't find the other one. There were also a few colourful Thorny sea cucumbers that are often seen on Chek Jawa and Changi.

And a very large specimen of the Flowery soft coral! It appears limp out of water, but fluffs up into a pink bush when submerged.

The shore was very much alive. But sadly, also one of the most badly littered shores I've been to in a while. Plastic bags, strings, used food wrappers were entwined with the sea fans and other marine life on the shore. There was even a huge signboard floating on the water threatening to flatten all the sea fans. It's amazing the sea fans are still there despite this daily onslaught.

I usually only see this kind of situation in the back mangroves where litter accumulates over years.

Does most of this litter come from East Coast beach users? Yet more that we need to find out about our shores. And more that to we can share with others so that we all can do our part for our marine life.