Marvellous May on our shores

I am posting photos late because I'm getting to old to process them on the same day. Apologies.

May was a fabulous month as we visited some shores we haven't seen for nearly half a year.

At Beting Bronok, an off shore reef near Tekong, we were pleasantly surprised that much of the marinelife are still there. Colourful sea fans, sponges and soft corals are still common on some parts of BB.

BB is also one of the few places where non-divers can easily see feather stars. This particular handsome black-and-white feather star was quite active. It obligingly crawled about with its long feathery arms for the filming. Other spectacular animals spotted included the nearly never-seen-elsewhere Bailer Shell snail, and all kinds of fishes which Dr Chua shot to death. We also encountered Luidia maculata, the special sea star, there again.

The water quality at BB has also improved slightly; from impossible-to-shoot-in to somewhat-impossible. But we didn't really get a chance to see all of the reef as the tide was not ideal and quickly turned.

And at Changi, MORE sea fans! (Yes, CHANGI!)

Last year, the sea fans seemed to have disappeared following the building of the Changi Boardwalk. But now these beautiful animals are right back where they were! In shades of red, orange and even a purple and white one.

Unfortunately, irresponsible fishing is an obvious danger to these delicate animals. This one was found high on the shore uprooted (roots circled in red) with a fishing line wound tightly around it.

On Changi, there were also ENORMOUS jellyfishes stranded on the shore, about 50cm in diameter!

At St. John's Island, while everyone was getting excited over the lobsters in the net, I was distracted by the amazing profusion of colourful corals and life on this tiny patch of reef.

The corallimorphs are tiny flat anemone-like animals. There are at least four different kinds on St. Johns and they carpet the coral rubble in all shades of the rainbow.

Pulau Sekudu is a wonderland of myriad creatures. We never fail to see something new there. But to me, it's just the jumble of candy-coloured creatures that attracts...

At Pulau Sekudu, I am especially careful about stingrays because I got stung there by one. Diligently only walking in clear shallow water, nevertheless, I was suddenly surrounded by countless rays! Help! They slid in from nowhere, settling about my feet. And then proceeded to bury themselves in the sand!!

It was a very nerve-wrecking combination tip-toe and shuffle before I got to dry land! Happily, unstung.

The same thing happened to Huaqin! And he's posted a clip of it on his Uncommon Beach blog

Next week, another series of low spring tides and no doubt, our shores will continue to astound us.