The Solo Adventures

On the 27th and 28th of April, I was the only one of the WildThings film crew that could make it for the trips. So. I was also the only one who would be handling the cameras, lights, and what have you.

On the 27th, we joined by Collin from NParks on the beach at the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. It had nice sand. Lots and lots of lots and lots of very, very nice sand. But there was little else to see while it was still dark. In fact, we would see the tests (skeletons) of sand dollars everywhere, and wonder about where the live ones were. We only realized after the sun came up that they were literally under our feet the whole time, and we probably crunched them in their hundreds... Oops.

Although we didn't have much of anything that day, we still have a sequence with a horsshoe crab that probably cannot be used due to the surge knocking the camera all over the shop, a puffer fish that probably had a swimbladder problem since it was swimming upside down. And moonsnails. Lots and lots of lots and lots of moonsnails and their food the button shells.

The next day I had a bit more help in carrying gear. We joined by Luan Keng from RMBR and Jacqueline. Read Jac's blog entry for the trip here. I still had to light and shoot my subjects all by myself though, as there was noone around to bark at.

We got a whole variety of stuff that day. Two flatfish, one of which was a peacock flounder. Very pretty fish, and they don't move like a fish. In fact, the way they move reminds one of the way a worm moves. Also lots and lots of Portunus, and what made our day was a 20cm octopus, that Jac or Luan Keng found, hiding in a volute shell. He got agitated when we were moving him into a deeper pool, and decided to make a run for it. Since he plopped into water that was barely 5cm deep, he couldn't use his jet propulsion to get away. So, he did the next best thing. He got up on his legs, and lurched away, and made good speed too. For the few meters that he had energy. After that he tried to bury himself in the soft silty sand. We left his volute shell next to him, in case he should decide that he would need a little more shelter.

Here's hoping that there will be no more such opportunities for me to do all this work alone. Makes me appreciate the rest of the team more. :)

First Stings First

(Title courtesy of Alvin)

Wandering blissfully in the middle of a blue lagoon, lost to the glorious morning on Pulau Sekudu, my ankle made violent acquaintance with the business end of a stingray. The pain was a shock; like a bamboo sliver jabbed in (through bootie) and yanked out again.

At first, there was just the pain of a deep cut. Half an hour later, the foot felt strange. Not excruciatingly painful, but weird; numb and tingly, the feeling moving slowly up to the knee.

I was nervously expecting more serious pain. But manfully went on for lunch with the team after the trip. After all, Alex advised the best way to counter venom is to add to body mass so as to dilute the toxicity.

In the midst of the cure, indeed, the pain went away!

Thus, I was able to safely operate the PV (production vehicle) ... though most wouldn't consider my driving safe.

Of course, as soon as we got home, we immediately looked up our ever-popular "A Colour Guide to Dangerous Animals" by P. Gopalakrishnankone (ed.), which says...

Rays are considered the most dangerous venomous fish by local fishermen. (I feel so manly already) Many rays are armed with sharp venomous spines at the tail. (tell me about it)

They are generally bottom dwellers and use their spines for defence. A sting can occur when the ray lashes its tail about in fright or when the victim accidentally steps on it (I wonder who is the victim here? Poor sting ray, I hope I didn't squash it too badly).

Venomous rays are widely distributed throughout the world and the incidence of injury is high (OK, I feel better now, not like I'm the ONLY stupoked person to get stung by a ray), with death resulting occasionally (Oooo...)

In many cases, the symptoms are localised, but sometimes nausea, weakness, unconciousness, diarrhoea, convulsions and respiratory distress may occur. (These symptoms are unfortunately hard to distinguish from the regular Stupoks that sets in after a trip. But I did take advantage the "weakness" and gratefully demured when Robert offered to carry my camera bag. When he took hold of it, he exclaimed "Good Grief! What do you put in here? Can I change my mind?". When I tried to encourage him by remarking how nice a gentleman he was, he gruffly said "I'm only a gentleman up to 5kgs". Oops, my bag is like 15kgs over the limit. But he still carried it to the boat. What a sweetie!)

The text adds suggestively... The flesh of most species is edible. Hhmm, I wonder what that means? Revenge on the ray that stung us?

Sting Journal
I thought this a great opportunity to study the effect of marine toxins! So here's some updates ...

Day One
0800hrs: Ouch!

1000hrs: Lunch does the trick, pain goes away

1300hrs: The wound doesn't hurt at all, but is weeping profusely. I can't really feel my toes, which seem to have swollen up somewhat. The site is turning a nice shade of purple. It will soon no doubt start rotting away so I have to chop off the foot. To ensure this is done with minimal pain, Tom has kindly offered to club me over the head with the Gitzo and use a hacksaw to do the job. Isn't nice to have friends who care...

1800hrs: Severe bout of diarrhoea. But maybe it's just too much ice-cream ... Pounding headache still there. Wound still weeps but less profusely. Tender area now almost the whole of the side of the foot, quite an impressive swelling. Toes still swollen.

2200hrs: Headache gone (I think that was just due to the scorching day). Foot nicely swelling up. All small joints stiff including fingers, but I think that's just the arthritis being aggravated (yah, I'm THAT old). Alas, obviously a stingray sting doesn't work like bee stings to cure arthritis. Hurts a bit to put weight on foot now. Am about to eat dinner ... let's see if I can hold that down ... Will pop an antihistamine soon, just so I don't die in my sleep. This is fun! Living science! Would like to thank all kind friends for calling/checking up to make sure I'm still alive.

Day Two
0800hrs: Had to miss guiding at Chek Jawa this morning. I thought I should be responsible (for a change) and give the ol' body a break. Dinner stayed down. Swelling has gone down, but still tender. Toes no longer look like grapes and I can wriggle them! The slight pain is more like a healing cut than toxins. Aside from the usual morning arthritis, I feel perfectly OK. Probably because I had more than 3 hours of sleep for the first time in 5 days :-)

1700hrs: Wound still weeps a little, slightly swollen (probably can't wear booties or real shoes for a few days). But otherwise, no discomfort.

Well, looks like I'll live. This time.

Day Three

1700hrs: Just back from 5-hour shoot on the shore. Couldn't squeeze on booties and didn't want to get feetie wet so I stayed on the high shore. And discovered lots of things about snails. For one, they move real slow, if at all. Wound seems fine. Doesn't hurt at all, except when I poke it. But Chay Hoon told me about this guy who got secondary infection and the problem lasted a whole year ... eeeks. Apparently he iced the wound which made it worse. I didn't do a thing to it and left it well alone. Tom asked whether I got it X-rayed to see if any bits of spine are still stuck inside ... I didn't think about that. It appears I might not be out of the woods just yet...

Day Four

0830hrs: Back at work, and wearing Real Shoes too! Absolutely no problems. Wound doesn't even hurt when I poke it. Just a small area of redness around the actual wound.

1400hrs: Just had a chat with Subaraj. He says it was probably the Mangrove whiptail (Himantura walga) that stung me as it's not as venomous as the Blue-spotted stingray (Dasyatis kuhlii). Indeed, the Mangrove whiptail is very commonly seen in that very lagoon at Sekudu. I was just asking for it, wading through without looking properly. Fortunately, I've never yet seen the Blue-spotted stingray at Sekudu. This is NOT the same as the Blue-spotted fantail ray (Taeniura lymma) that we more commonly see on the reefs of the Southern shores. I don't really want to test which of these is the most toxic.

Day Seven: Still slightly swollen and the area has started to itch quite badly. Tomorrow, the next series of super low tides are starting and so have to get back into the water...

Day Eight: Put a dinky plaster over the wound and went out into the water. Not good. Site has swollen badly: purply red with impressive blood vessels; tender and painful. I think this is the dreaded secondary infection that Chay Hoon spoke about. The crew tried to console me by saying that I would look quite fetching with a wooden leg. But I would have to watch out for barnacles and wood-borers.

Day Nine: Put OpSite plaster over the wound and tried to keep foot dry. Yah, right. That worked for about 5 minutes. OpSite plaster came off with bootie after the trip and foot is REALLY bad now. Finally succumbed and went to see the doctor who prescribed antibiotics. He was most impressed by the injury. A first for him. Anyway, he doesn't think I'm going to die.

Day Ten to 13: Doggedly go on with field trips but try to stay on high shore. Wound got worse (swelling grew, a blood vessel or nerve into the heel got infected). Over the days, improved gradually. In between trips, tried to keep foot elevated, which makes for a very amusing pose at the computer...

Day 14 to 15: End of trips. Foot finally gets to stay dry in between baths.

Day 16: End of antibiotics and pain completely gone. No longer swollen or painful, and can finally see my ankle bone again. But the area around the sting now quite hard. Looks like I have to cancel the order for the wooden leg...

Loy has added a link to this entry from his blog. Thanks for the good wishes Loy! No, I didn't intend to get stung. But since it has happened, might as well find out how bad it can get.

As I've discovered, not too bad. Perhaps it was a small ray and not a very mean one. I will certainly NOT want to repeat the experience. Must be careful when wading through murky waters.

What next?
Robin (of Stonefish Fame) remarked, for us Wild Things, it's not a matter of "if" we will get bit, stung, jabbed, burnt. It's a matter of "when". Chay Hoon added sagely: "and by what".

Perusing the above-mentioned book (which we last pored over when Robin got hit) we identified some other things which we will no doubt eventually encounter in an unfriendly way:

Sure Die One...
Sea snake
Cone snail
Blue-ringed octopus

Serious Ouch ...
Sea urchin
Scorpionfish
Catfish
Fireworm
Jellyfish
Fire coral
Hydroids

It's a miracle we are still alive and have most of our appendages ...

NParks Ubin Management + Conservation Launch

Just some photos here:

Originally posted as a thread on Clubsnap... but extra commentary only for Wildfilms blog! YAAAY!

Just "happened" to be there today... Yeah right, it's as likely as a windfall when I look up to the skies... I went because Adelle mailed out something regarding this...


A scale model of how the Chek Jawa area will look soon in the future. Personal concern is how the boardwalk construction may affect the existing organisms and ecosystems as the works are done. Does it spell the end of the guided tours?


Minister for National Development, Mr Mah Bow Tan arrives at the tentage for the Launch with an entourage. OK, so his entourage can't compare to Michael "Pailface" Jackson's...


Marine biologist by training, Professor Leo Tan addresses the audience about the early dismal days of Chek Jawa, to the current general awareness about the location. He didn't bore us to death with his speech. Thankfully.


Mr Mah Bow Tan addressing the audience on the general plans that are in the works. You may have wanted to bring out your favourite bolster as you listened to him...


The local news media converges on the three key men - Mr Mah Bow Tan, Professor Leo Tan, and Mr Paul Lawrence - as they do the formal cheque presentation ceremony. If I can't be bothered to squeeze to the front, why squeeze at all? Make the photographers the subject instead! HAHAHA!!!


Mr Mah Bow Tan, second from right, points out a section from the scale model, while Mr Paul Lawrence (center) has a look at the model with Professor Leo Tan, and another two NParks officials after the cheque presentation ceremony. Maybe he's just spotted a Keyhole Sand Dollar that Ria is desperately seeking. Not to be confused with Desperate Housewives

Channel News Asia report
TodayOnline report

Shock Horror! Stupoks Strikes!

Keep something in mind. Before we left HQ, I was told that I was going to be dropped off at home after we were done on the shore. Today we would be filming near the Changi Ferry Terminal. The crew for today would be me, Ria, Alvin and Darwin, and we would be joined by Collin from NParks.

After breakfast, we had a couple of currypuffs left over, which we thought we would package and give to Alvin and Darwin. The currypuffs were dutifully packed back in the box they came in... and left sitting on the kitchen countertop, and by the time I get there this afternoon, I bet there will be quite a bit of cleaning up to do.

We WildThings are a rather superstitious lot, and we will not say the word "rain" before a trip, since from past experience, whenever we say the word, it will fall. And evidently, Darwin had said the word before we arrived, and when we looked at the horizon as we walked down to the shore, we were greeted with flashes of lightning. Fortunately, they seemed to be rather far away, so we decided to continue for the moment.

On reaching the water line, we immediately saw many, many moon crabs (Matuta lunaris). And these were not the normal puny 3cm ones we normally see on Chek Jawa and Changi Point. These were HUGE! Maybe 7cm across! And we didn't jsut see one or two of them! The shore was practically crawling with them. Also seen were many, many Portunus. It was as if they were having some sort of party!

Later on, we started seeing a whole lot of moon snails (Naticidae). Sorry, I'm lousy with species id. I noticed one moving, then decided to wait for Alvin to come along, since I was in knee deep water, and wasn't too confident that I could get any useful footage with my wonderful camera. As I was waiting and observing, I noticed the moon snail start lunging after breakfast (probably supper for the moon snail). Breakfast was the button snail, but I don't think the moon snail was particularly fussy. He also went after the hermitcrabs that were in those shells. Alvin was engrossed in some other creature, so I decided to experiment, and use my torch to light the moon snail, and try get some footage while he was active. Let's say that the results are.... interesting. By the time Alvin arrives with Darwin and the lights, the guy decides to become lazy and stop moving.

At around this time, the batteries in the light canon decide it is time to go to sleep. Lousy GP. We need to go get something more reliable. Anyway, as we are changin the lights over to the car batteries, Ria has to start yelling at us to get our act together to get out to the good stuff. What was she so excited about? She had seen a huge ball of striped eel-tailed catfish (Plotosus lineatus). I went out to join Ria and Collin and see what was so exciting about this particlar ball, and then I see them release a flash of blue light! They flouresce! I didn't expect that. By the ime Alvin reached us, the catfish were pretty tired of messing with us and had decided to move to deeper water. So there were no shots at all of flourescing catfish.

We also saw a red sea hare. We recalled Yuchen's earlier post, and were wondering what would happen if we tried to follow his suggestion. In the end, we decided that he would have the honour of being the guinea pig, since we didn't want to take the risk of an oops-splash situation should we start spasming.

We also saw a fanworm that for some reason or other was exposed to the air. It looked like an orchid! In fact I was thinking that it was some sort of mangrove flower bits. Nearby were pipefish! And prawns!

Towards the end, I see some huge stuff on the shore. One was a Portunus (At least I think it was Portunus... It defintely was not Scylla. I'll have a better idea what it is after I review the footage.)which I tried shooting video of. Too bad that I had forgotten to include a sense of scale. I swear that I could not light the whole crab with my torch. Only a third at most could be covered by my torch. So to shoot it at all, I had to do some tricky coordination between hands and eyes. It did not help that this thing was in knee deep water, and Alvin, Darwin and the lights were far away. At the very end of the shoot, I spotted a large horseshoe crab, of about 50 cm length, which I didn't shoot, since I was trying to get away from sandflies at this time!

After we had packed, and decided who would be joining whose vehicle to go to work, Ria dropped me off home. Remember the liitle fact that I asked you to remember earlier? That I would be dropped off home? Guess what? I had forgotten to pack my wallet and keys! They are still at HQ! The luckiest thing is that my flatmate was still in the house and could let me in.

This is only the first in a long sequence of trips. I wonder what will go wrong tomorrow, when I do a solo camera/lighting job at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal....

Earth Day Outing

It seemed appropriate that Earth Day be spent on terra firma instead of the usual slushy half-water places.

At the kind invitation of the Vertebrate Survey Group, I joined them on a relaxing outing yesterday to survey the verts at the fringes of our forest. Being basically a Worm Girl, I'm not very good at spotting or shooting things with backbones (except perhaps fishies). Mostly, I got my usual favourite spineless stuff...

A baby Atlas moth chomping on an unknown plant. It wasn't very big so we think it's one of the smaller Atlas moth species. It has lovely blue spot along the sides of its body.

A long beige grasshopper that flattened out to blend in with the flowering grass stalk that it was on. A big spider having dinner, oblivious to the tiny red spiders that lurk in its web. These tiny red spiders are parasites, in the sense that they squat in other spider webs and steal their food.

There was an aroid in bloom, which attracted tiny little...I didn't know what they were until I got home and enlarged the photo (as usual). Wow...itsy bitsy flies!

The only things with backbones I shot were these romantic Spotted House Geckos (Gekko monarchus) busy making new Spotted House Geckos high up in a tree. I took this feeble shot, while Kwok Wai had the Real Manly Equipment with Length to take the proper picture.

Considered uncommon, these are not your usual small 'chik-chaks' that live in our homes. They are quite large (about 20cm) and are found outside homes in rural areas.

The only other vertebrates I took were the 'Verters' as they call themselves, busy at work..'Verting'?

Nick Baker also has Real Manly Equipment of Great Length with Extra Stuff that is quite impressive. And Nick will do whatever it takes, including clambering into drains, to get those verts! The Real Verters got all kinds of lovely shots: strange frogs, skinks, walking catfish and other spined stuff.

Kwok Wai posts his photos on his Wildlife Singapore website http://www.wildsingapore.per.sg

Nick posts his photos on his EcologyAsia website
http://www.ecologyasia.com/

We also spotted a colugo with a baby. Our forests are certainly alive with verts!

We ended the lovely walk with a fabulous supper at Andrew's home: curry rice, beer, lime juice on a verandah overlooking the pool. Plus the great company, what a wonderful way to celebrate Earth Day!

Wildthings of Wildfilms - A day out

Being a student has its perks I must say, but the exams are definitely NOT one of 'em!! So here I was.... mugging......


Mugging.....


and Mugging.....


while the wildthings embarked on their next trip, to Tuas, at the Merawang beacon... It began like every trip..(I'm sure.. hehe) and of course, like every place, it had its very own unique beauty. Hearing from the other wildthings and seeing pictures of what they found, It was such a pity I couldn't be there! Hence, I'm doing the least I can.. blogging about my beloved crewmates and fellow-sufferers of stupoks...

Well, there's Tom and Wai... who have adopted similar postures.. lying down..


Such a posture ensures the camera-man/woman gets a good shot of the critter and plus, they do not risk being knocked into the water! *teehee* It's still very tempting to get down next to them and get my hands in the water give them good 'ol splashing.. great wake up call in the wee hours of the morning!! *heh heh*

The above pictures were at Raffles Marina, before they hopped on a speedboat to the Merawang beacon....


Ta-Da!! Like any other place, Tuas had it's own kind of simple-beauty.. At dawn, it is quiet as first sign of light creeps into the sky, as the Wildthings combed the area for critters to capture on film. At sight of these little fascinating creatures, the crew adopts positions typically of the following form:


See, Tom, Wai and CH all adopt seemingly 'normal' postures, ready to lend a hand.. On the other hand, Alvin looks like he's in quite a weird position.. though It doesn't look as if he's in discomfort... of course, his 'strategic pose' might be normal for someone with that geeky box-chair-assembly-thingy. *heh heh*

One thing kinda fun about Tuas is the amphibious landing.. we wildthings look sooo cool with our gear, jumping (well, I have to glam-it-up mah) off the boat and heading towards the beacon..
leaving the place, also amphibious landing..



By this time, the sun was up, and all wildthings will look forward to treatment for withdrawal symptoms and stupoks.... ahhh...

I cannot CANNOT wait to be out there again! 15 days to go.....

Rare Seahorse from Robert Heigermoser

Robert is a regular with the Wild Things on the wild trips to our wild shores. He takes lots of lovely pictures of the various sea creatures that we come across, and generously shares them. And so, he shared this amazing photo with us.

He also often spots things that the rest of us missed.

But how could we have missed this one?

SleepsZZZzzz…..At Anywhere, Anytime

SleepsZZZzzz….That’s what most film-crews missed when we were out shooting at unearthly hours before sunrise. The effect of lacking a good sleep had left us feeling stoned and sometime causes stupok situations to arise.

Therefore, to avoid getting the side effects or at least lessen the stupok situation, we have learned to master the art of napping at anywhere, anytime before/after shootings.

At Base camp, before we start the day at 4am, we usually have only about 2 hours of sleep (Yes…only 2, you can count with your fingers…1….2…) if we stay up late to pack equipments or chitchats. Therefore, to gain more rest, we will be asleep on the production vehicle or taxi when making our way to the shores.

And as the sun rises marking the end of shooting for the day, everybody feels tired. And guess what? The next minute, you will find hammocks hanging from trees to trees. Those without one will be seen lying down on the benches or simply sleep sitting down.

Yah, and one more way where you can find us sleeping is on the boat away from/back to mainland. This despite all the boat's rocking and swaying. Here’s a demonstration by Alvin;


Alvin asleep on the way home from Kusu

And of course, at the end of the day, we still get to shut down for longer hours before the start of the next morning trip. ZZZZZZZzzzzzz.......

Get a faceful of redbull-flavoured sticky cream pie!

was googling for chemical response to predators by prey species when i came across this link:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/lobster_vs_sea_hare/#continue

It tells of how the sea hare escapes its would be predators by "slamming its would be predator (ie lobster) with a faceful of red-bull flavored cream pie" as it squirts out its mucousy excretements. Appareantly it squirts out 2 types of fluids; the usual purple dye, which clouds the water while the hare makes its escape. Even curiouser, it also squirts a sticky whitish fluid (erm.) that contains taurine, lysine etc; these redbull components actually send mixed signals to the predator, fooling it. The poor bugger gets confused and starts working its mandibles, eating water and thrusting its claws into the sand while lunch twitches off, laughing. And studies show that its actually the white secretions that save the hare most of the time; if it only secreted the purple dye, it would 80% of the time be lobstermunch.

Maybe i should keep some sea hares in school and lick them like those amazonians lick poison tree frogs. then i wont need to buy endless cans of redbull. And if i get hungry i have a live snack.

Or maybe its just the stupox speaking. gah.

****HATING SCHOOL*****

yc

Sneaky cam.

Ria has recently gotten a sneaky cam which catches everyone in compromising positions. Of course, she doesn't appear in any of the shots. Which is a pity because Ria's awfully photogenic. So I decided to fix the situation by bringing my own sneaky cam along... ;)


Ria's easy smile is so very endearing.

Highlights of the Lows: Apr 10-13

Finally!! The pre-dawn super low tides have started for the year. Under the cover of darkness, there is usually a wild party on the shores. This is when shy creatures not commonly seen during the day come out to play. Here's some of those we caught in the act...

"Adorable!" Z exclaimed when she saw this tiny nudibranch at Tuas. We thought she meant that was its scientific name. And indeed, it should have been called Adorabeleus or something like that. We have no idea what it is, possibly Hypselodoris.

Seafans are everywhere at Tuas; candy-coloured orange, red, pink, with a frosting of white. Although they may look like plants, sea fans are actually animals! They are related to corals and each 'tree' is actually a colony of many tiny polyps. Each polyp has tiny branched tentacles.

Another endearing seashore creature that is only seen at night. These large colourful Grapsus crabs are quite common at Kusu Island. But often, all you will encounter is a loud clatter as they scramble rapidly among the rocks. You'll need to creep quietly up to them, and get only one chance to take a photo of ONE of them. The flash sends all of them in a mad clatter into hiding places. Thereafter, you'll be lucky to see even the tip of a hairy leg.

Of course, I was on the look out for Worms. And What Worms we saw! At Tuas, a velvety black flatworm with eletric blue margins. And as we were boarding the boat at Raffles Marina, the water was alive with lots feathery worms, swimming near the surface with elegant ripples. These beautiful worms are also called 'fire worms' because they pack a powerful sting. The film crew got lots of lovely footage of the worms.

Other fabulous finds included the frogfish, clownfishes, seahorses at Tuas (alas, no photos of the clownfish or seahorses; but the film crew got lots of lovely footage).

Although still severely sleep deprived, I'm already missing the trips and looking forward the next series of low tides...

Mesmerised by Merawang

Merawang was a fascinating wonderland of things I've never seen before. Wondrous things of all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours that defy description with mere words cover the sea floor and it's nearly impossible to go for much distance without accidentally crunching or squishing something underfoot. It was a landscape dotted with masses of corals both soft and hard and of all colours imaginable, intersperced with many brilliant red sea fans with pretty white polyps, with their tiny symbionts nearly too small to see even on film with the macro lens on. The hydroids were around, as I'd been warned, and Alvin spotted 2 sea spiders on a clump! :) Massive synaptid sea cucumbers were curled around rocks all over the place. Fishes were darting around, mostly too quick for me to see beyond a flash of colour darting under a rock. There were slower ones too. One of the early spots for me this morning was a gigantic toadfish over 20cm long. It ambled around for awhile before making a beeline for a crevice under a rock and after that no amount of prodding would get it out. We spotted 2 seahorses today. It was quite a magical feeling watching them swim around. They were quite big, and really beautiful, and very active. The first one was a yellow fellow with brown stripes. It didn't really like the camera but provided much lovely footage as it swam around trying to escape the lens. The second was black with yellow stripes, which was spotted later on by Alvin but as it turns out I'd gotten a glimpse of it earlier by sheer luck when trying to shoot the yellow one. It was wandering about in the background just inches away but we only spotted it while reviewing the tape (Doh! I did it again!). It was really pretty. Too pretty for words. (Ria, please do feel free to supplement this post with appropriate pictures. ;) The highlight of the day was an amazing anemone that had 5 anemone fishes swimming around in it. Got the most amazing footage of the Nemos (mostly false clownfish, from what I could see) frolicking around after lying there on the spiky ground for a really long time, trying to hold my breath and watch the screen while keeping the camera trained on the anemone (Woo! Got lucky today! The water cleared up at the exact same moment when a fish decided to be nice and peer out of the anemone, holding still for a few critical seconds... :). There were sobering moments too, in this mystical place in the middle of the sea. Lining both coasts surrounding it were many factories with smoking chimneys stretching out into the horizon. We found a recently deceased parrotfish, dead of who-knows-what causes, a sobering reminder of what could happen if we don't protect our natural heritage carefully. Left Merawang feeling strangely peaceful, and eagerly awaiting our next morning trip. Who knows what else we'll find?

yippee! suaku me finally sees nemo + anymoney!

yaaay! finally i got to see an anymoney with a nemo (must be mone[y] spelt wrongly) in kusu waters. oooh! and i learnt that i need not have a hump to be a camel or mule. just need to be careful of "oops drop" and "oops zap" situations, that's all...

it was fun seeing all the cows in the milky way in the morning, don't know why they shine so brightly. maybe we should have more days of national blackout (or just a national blackout day in conjunction with the singapore green plan) so that we can finally see stars during the nightfall hours. i mean, i've been looking everywhere for a star, but the sun has been too bright... teeheehee...

till the next weekend wee hour trip!

Bloomin' Forests and Tick Talk

Tom and I went terrestrial today. With Genevie, Ismail and Siew Chin to check out the mass blooming at Bukit Timah. And wow! What blossoms carpeted the forest floor!

Tom spotted the tantalizing red fruits of Streculia coccinea that just HAD to be photographed.

OF COURSE the plant had to be embedded in the middle of a nice thick layer of leaf litter that I would have to wade through. Leaf litter that no doubt harboured colonies of blood-thirsty ticks. Ticks that would happily creep through my so-called tick-proof footwear and all-purpose anti-bug pants. Ticks that would burrow into my legs and lay generations of tick babies before I get my limbs amputated.

Ticks were the talk of the afternoon. Holed up at the Visitor Centre's seminar room due to the downpour, Siew Chin and Genevie regaled us with Real Life Tick Encounters.

Tom is already thinking of hair-raising ways for wildfilms to shoot the forest.

I could only think of ticks ...

Butt shot at CJ

This was the shot-of-the-day for me yesterday.

Being the Worm Twitcher that I am, it was a lifer. I've only seen an Acorn worm's butt twice in all my life. Ooo, isn't it just the cutest butt ever ...

For those who care, Acorn worms are in Phylum Hemichordata, Class Enteropneusta. They are NOT run-of-the-mill low-life Annelida (bristleworms and such) or Nematoda (that infest your tummy). The Hemichordates have intriguing relationships with Phylum Echinodermata (sea stars et al) and Phylum Chordata (that's us! and birds and whales and elephants).

There are only 70 or so known living species of Acorn worms. They are rarely seen above ground and tend to disintegrate when dug up. They can be quite long. Extrapolating from the extensive coils of poo they produce, they must be mind-bogglingly long!

... like most girls, I tend to be easily impressed by length.

Diving at semakau

Hello all, my 1st contributory post for this blog!
Its been a long time, and the usual excuse is killer projects and papers. Coffee/redbull addict now. Hell week(s)'s over for now, so i decided to have a little rec time:
Had the chance of diving off the ocast of South western semakau. It was very sudden; the dive company called n asked if i wanted to dive off hantu, i said sure, but in the end we ended at semakau. Well i can say that the place isnt Hantu, but its (sorta) growing. Lots of soft corals, sporadic popping up of plate like hard corals (fungia??). Water was very silty (vis = 3-4 feet). Current was steadily moderate. A more detailed description:

50-40 feet: Very bad vis. Nearly hit bottom when as we only managed to see it 3 feet away from us. nothing much save the occasional seafan.
40-30: Much more seafans and those single stranded twig like corals popping out of the mud. Some nudibranchs. Some squirts and sponges.
30-20: Alot of seafans and some other corals. more nudibranchs. Appearance of sea urchins. Spotted a large synaptid(30 cmlong, 3cm diameter) and a HUGE knobbly sea cucumber (40cm long, 8cm diameter). More Squirts and sponges. Found a feather star.
20-0: Lots of hard plate corals. Curiously lacking brain coral and staghorn/branched hard corals. Huge bunches of soft coral. Urchins in abundance. Few nudibranchs.

Nudibranchs were found in abundance at around 40 - 15 feet. Moderate amounts of Glossodoris atromarginata (ard 10cm). Some compact knobbly white/bluish phyllidia(5cm) species and pretty marine flatworms (thought they were nudis at 1st). There were LOTS of those worm-like ones(3-6cm) - probably from suborder aleolinda - looks like Phidiana indica or Pteraeolidia ianthina with its white body exchanged for purple, with tinges of yellow. Sorry but im not terribly good at identifying nudibranch species. Searched from the sea slug forum's species database. Unless someone could direct me to a better database (ie more picture identification friendly)

And curiously, there were NO fishes to be seen, other than one lone butterfly fish at 40 m and a goby at 30m.

There must be some lobsters nearby - some fishermen caught one in their bubu traps.

So there it is - deeper water fauna of semakau. Silty water, bad vis. Cant really compare to hantu or sisters islands, but it seemed good enough. There were way too many nudibranchs and no fishes, so i think theres an imbalance in ecology somewhere.

And, please, can someone direct me to any online userfriendly picture orientated database for marine fauna? having a hard time identifying. Otherwise im going to have to invest in literature. Or break in to Ria's house and nick her incredible database for marine fauna. And darn, i havent managed to get my waterproof casing for my cam, or i would have posted up some pics here.

Morning on Sentosa and Labrador shores

Our first pre-dawn outings for the year!

On Sentosa, our favourite Polka-dotted nudibranch (Jorunna funebris) seems to be in season again. And a little Marine spider (Desis sp.) that just caught a tiny shrimp for breakfast! I only saw the little shrimp in its gigantic jaws when I got home and enlarged the photo.



On Labrador, I "accidentally" photographed some slugs. As usual, I was just taking seaweed and I saw the slugs AFTER I got home and saw the photo in full size. *slap forehead* next time must get better close-up of them. The seaweed is Halimeda sp. or Coin seaweed. The little coin-like segments are hard as they contain calcium.



Bizarre seaweeds were everywhere. Well, I think the red feathery thing at Sentosa was a seaweed. The juicy-looking green seaweed is Boergesenia forbesii fondly called Bubble seaweed. Some of the ballon-like bits were "empty". I don't really know what's going on. Seaweeds are very strange.



But the highlight for me were the hundreds of little "blossoms" of colonial anemones that carpeted the shores of Labrador. These tiny animals are often overlooked. It's easy to stomp on them unknowingly. I'm excited by these animals not only because they are so pretty, but also because equally fascinating animals like nudibranchs, flatworms and crabs eat them...but alas, didn't see anyone at breakfast.



A closer look reveals the amazing variety of colours and patterns of colonial anemones...


Can't wait for the Really Early morning trips!

It's dark and cool, so that's when all the shore animals come out in their party clothes. To find food, eat each other, have sex and engage in all kinds of gruesome and exciting activities.

Foray into Base Camp

I spent my first night at base camp! And lived to tell the tale! Haha!

Seriously, overnighting at Ria's house on monday night was a really cool experience. Her house is great. Miles in from the main road (at least it felt like miles, walking up the slope to the indignant yelps of the neighbours' dogs), really quiet and peaceful (a big improvement from my place next to the MRT tracks!).

The vines and plants hanging around the edges of the house give the place a really nice natural feel. At least, I'd imagined it to be quite green, because I only was there while the sky was pitch black - arrived well into the night and whisked off in the wee hours of the morning. With all that green stuff around, I really had to wonder why the snail got into the mail, and not for the first time too, from Ria's reaction. :)

Spent my night with one of the cats curled comfortably at the foot of the bed. I like cats, and Manis was a nice cat, so that was a pretty good experience, all things considered. Ria did offer me a tip that may come in handy for people who may not enjoy feline incursions as much as I did. Apparently her cats really dislike the sound of rustling plastic bags so all you have to do is rustle to evict them.

The only thing that was bad was the mosquitoes!!! They were everywhere. The mosquito coil I carried around with me like a talisman did little to deter them, lousy thing. Or perhaps the mosquitoes were just too determined.. Still have the splotches, a few days on. Hopefully the next time I'm there there will be a new victim to sacrifice! Muahahaha!