Off season to-do

So, during the off season, some of the crew still have plenty on their plates.

Ria has gone off and started giving talks, training new guides for new places and started putting new books and guidesheets together.

Everyone else has a job, a life, and other things to get on with.

And I have tapes. From 2 years of working with the crew there seems to be a remarkable improvement in the way we handle the material. It seems we never really labelled the tapes with as much care as we do now until about January this year. Before that, which camera, and thus which operator was responsible for the "Blair Witch" effect was anyone's guess.

Fortunately, I was with Ria on most trips this year, and have managed to identify which tapes hold which locations, and with the dates enabled I can cross check with her calendar and see where we went. The scenery helps a lot too!

Now I wonder, that since we will be in the off season, and we don't really shoot that much in the evenings, will we be getting the same problems again come the end of year, where we shoot 15 minutes on one day, save the tape for use 2 weeks to a month later, then say to each other when we finally use up the tape.... "Where has this tape gone, and when?"

It never fails to amaze me...

... how rejuvenating and wonderful a respite from regular life it is to be out in the open, sitting at the back of the little snip of a boat, chugging by the newly-constructed breakwater at Tekong, and watching the sky with the breeze in your face.

Nothing like...
... an amphibious landing to really wake you up as you trudge manfully (*crunch* *crunch*) in the cold, organic water to form a human chain to pass the gear to the shore

... fussing over a little anemome until a big blob ("Stingray!... Sole!... SOTONG!!!") hurtles past

... sitting on the foldable stool/bag thingy, waiting for the murky water to clear, and grabbing a bit of shuteye to pre-empt falling asleep while driving back later

... talking about Guild Wars with Tom to keep from falling asleep on the drive back

Certainly, nothing like these on a Sunday morning at all!

And so it ends...

Today was the last trip for the Wildfilms crew. At least, for me. The rest may have a trip lined up for some time in September, assuming that they can free up their schedules for it.

During this season, we have killed equipment, drowned LCD screens, breathed in insects, stung by stingrays.

We have made some new friends, and worked with old ones. We have lost some members to other commitments, and while we wish each other well, they have promised to come back and help us when they can make themselves available again. We have had fun in the dark, unlit places of Singapore, had sometimes heated discussions about right, wrong, and what we think is acceptable as compromise. Some of these will rear their heads again.

We have seen things that others may not have noticed, or seen. And some things that are new to us, I realise are not new to others, and may be more common than even we think.

What have we learned? To accept each other's little (and sometimes not-so-little) quirks, I hope. To respect each other's point of view, even if we should disagree. To remember that as the only creatures walking the Earth blessed with a conscience and thought, we do have a responsibility to be Good Stewards, which sometimes causes us to ask... "Are we doing things right?"

We have a lot to look forward to. Work, play, a normal sleep schedule. Maybe not so much play.

Time to think about all the time I'm going to have on my hands, what with nothing to do in the early mornings now that they are free...

Happy Hour @ BB Bar

Beting Bronok ('beting' - Malay for sandbar) is exposed only during super low tides, and I was one of the lucky few who managed to visit this marvellous patch of mud for my first & the last time this year. This of course meant having to stay up all night as I was afraid I might oversleep and miss the 3.00am bumboat ride out. It was a cloudy morning, and after something like 40 or 50 minutes, I heard Ria say, there! That's it! It should be right there! I looked real hard in the direction she was pointing at and saw this:

Ok, I'm exaggerating... all we saw was this:


But on Beting Bronok itself, there was so much more to see. Apart from the highlight of the morning, Melo Melo, we also saw a newly born shark, with yolk still attached (!!), discovered by Dr Chua.

There were small sea cucumbers scattered all over the sandbank, and more than the cukes were brittle stars, all over the place! The gobies & snapping shrimps here came in junior size, and there were also many small anemones of various shapes & colours. Oh, and did I forget to mention the many sea pens with porcelain crabs? Tom counted about NINE porcelain crabs in just one sea pen!

Being one of the new crew members, I'm not sure if this could be classified as a case of the Stupoks.... But here's something funny that happened. We were documenting this stranded jellyfish for a REALLY long time, hoping it would do something cool like grab the tiny goby nearby with one of its many tentacles. So we waited, and waited... Zoom in on the jellyfish's tentacles. Zoom in on its mouth. Zoom in on the fearless goby flirting with death. Hmmm... jellyfish doesn't seem to be hungry. Time to flip him over to see what he looks like from the top. Oops! Where'd he go?!!

Turns out jellyfish was an anemome. Duh....

After exploring BB a while more, it was soon time to leave all our newfound friends behind. Most of us found this quite difficult, cos this place is just teeming with life! Walking on BB is like walking on a minefield of colonial anemones, ascidians and the many other creatures that lay hidden under the mud and rocks.

Some of the crew were visiting BB again on Sunday, but for the rest of us, it would be the last time for the rest of the year. BB was soon out of sight again as the tide rose and the bumboat drifted further and further away. But never out of mind. Bye BB...We'll see you again next year!

A Rare Encounter

We came across a rare snail from our trip to Beting Bronok on Saturday.
Who’s this snail? Mmmm…according to the Singapore Red Data Book, it is listed as endangered and was thought to be exterminated from Singapore waters until a recent isolated sighting which confirms their continued existence.

So there you are…presenting…..Melo Melo.



It is also called a Baler Shell as it is used traditionally to bail water from boats. According to the book, one of the threats for these beautiful snails is habitat degradation. Its meat is eaten as food (Maybe another reason for its diminish). In addition, collectors also seek after the shells of Melo Melo. This should be discouraged, for the empty shell can become a home to a Hermit crab like Clibanarius sp.



The Melo Melo is from the Volutidae family. Another snail from this family is the Noble Volute (Cymbiola nobilis) who we usually found at Chek Jawa.



The Red Date Book listed the Noble Volute as vulnerable and similar to the Melo Melo, its presence is threatened by habitat degradation too. It is also collected for food and ornamental trade.

Both snail are carnivorous and eat other snails by enclosing the victim in their large foot. But there are some difference between Melo Melo and Cymbiola nobilis :

Melo Melo : Light thin shell, animal has brown and white stripes.

Cymbiola Nobilis: Heavy shell, animal is black with orange spots.

Opps! I Did It Again!

Changi Ferry Terminal was pretty much alive with crustaceans and slugs on Thursday morning & we saw quite a few interesting sights.

Tom spotted a massive troop of baby hermit crabs and they seemed to like us pretty much! I think they loved our booties as they all crawled onto Wai's.

A very-much-alive scallop that clapped in the water & splashed water at Tom.

A tripod fish found by Bernie. First time we saw it at Changi Ferry Terminal!
The seahares were almost one palm size!
The climax of the day, however, is...
I stepped onto a flat sole!

OPPS!!!

Guessed it must have hurt pretty badly. It was flapping like mad as I looked at it in guilt.The flatsole then flapped its way into a shallow pool of water & all of us shrieked!

The tripod fish was right in front of the flatsole!!!
The tripod fish didnt notice the flatsole and swam as close to 2cm in front of the mouth of the flatsole. The flatsole, I must say, is very good at camouflaging in sandy bottom, which the tripod fish & I missed.

But I think that is the only way of how a flatsole is to be found during our trips...
opps! opps! opps!

Lim Chu Kang Mangrove Adventure

While Singapore celebrated her 40th birthday, Wildthings celebrated it together with her our way, with an early morning visit to Lim Chu Kang mangroves.

This was my first visit there, and I relished the opportunity of learning a little bit about mangrove ecology and the wildlife that could be found there. It turned out to be a perfect day, bright and dry, with the ground hard enough to walk around without sinking in the mud. Even the mosquitoes were quite friendly and didn't bother me (the crew's resident bug bait) too much.

We were greeted with the sight of many gigantic mud lobster mounds, which were fascinating to behold. Some were as tall as me! Later found out that lobster mounds can be up to 3m tall. I was shown a really cool secret hidden in the mound. It was so well-camouflaged that I didn't see it at all until Ria pointed out the exact spot to me - a small circular shape on the mound, about 1cm across. It looked exactly like the rest of the mound in appearance, except that there was a roundish outline. It turned out to be a flap that could be flipped up, to expose a white-lined tunnel - the home of a tarantula! I could just see the tips of its 2 fuzzy legs in the entrance of the tunnel. In this case, a little patience led to a fascinating view of half of its body finally emerging grumpily to slam the flap shut.


Tarantula's abode.

That had to be the find of the day, though I tried very hard afterwards to find a spider on my own, I didn't have much luck. On the mounds were also some really odd-looking big red ants (about 1.5cm in length). They had a really evil looking jaw/extension thing on their heads. I later found out that they're Odontomachus malignus, intertidal ants which live in the mounds, and named for their extremely painful sting.


Wicked jaws - lobster mound ant.

Many gastropods were also evident in the mangroves.


The cute little red berry snails, barely 3mm across, lined the ground. For some strange reason, they reminded me of candy.


There were also many onchidiums around. Their muddy grey forms blended in perfectly with the surroundings. However, flipping them around revealed colourful undersides that differed from each other. Here are 3 of the different kinds that we found. The BP guidebook to Singapore Mangroves mentions that there could be as many as 15 different species!

Can't wait for a nocturnal visit. Maybe we'll get a chance to see the other (nocturnal) inhabitants of the mud lobster mounds - the snakes, and maybe even the elusive mud lobster itself! :)

There is nothing to fear....

It appears that to be a member of the Wildfilms crew, you need to have nerves of steel, or perhaps a lack of a normal sense of fear.

From my own observations of how we work, a call of "Danger! Step back and come no closer!" is always met with a pause, then assuming the camera gear is all ready, the source of danger will be located, approached, and filmed. Or abused. From the point of view of the creature, I'm pretty sure it sometimes isn't pleasant.

We've encountered several creatures large and small, and all of them willing to cause us a perhaps a lot of pain, if not a painful death if not approached with respect.

A cobra that was spotted as we walked along a trail out of Chek Jawa on Pulau Ubin, several encounters with a stonefish, of which one of us was put out of action for a month. Fierce monkeys on one of the Southern Islands. Stingrays, one of which got a crew member, who stubbornly soldiered on. She only recently rediscovered her ankle. Little glow-in-the-dark creatures, some of which were identified as copepods, and others as fireflies, though sometimes I'm not convinced. The rest will deny and say that it's something copmletely benign. Like a marker buoy. And just recently, an encounter with a large monitor lizard that we got within 10 cm of.

Being one of the two crew members that was present to film the guy, I must say that I felt absolutely no fear whatsoever while filming the lizard. I have to say that Cynthia, who is probably the most normal member of the crew in terms of her fear of reptiles, held out quite well, and got one of the best shots of the creature I have ever seen, getting within half a meter of the lizard's nose.

I think that there is some hope for Cynthia! She has now approached a monitor lizard, and handled a file snake, without freaking out. The more time she spends with us, I guess the more warped her sense of fear will eventually become.

So far, I've had the privilege of handling a number of reptiles as a research volunteer, and as a "unofficial pest control manager" during my time in University. Now, as a wildfilms crew member, I've yet to find the limit of my fear.

However, I believe that I have a great deal of respect for these creatures, great and small, and the pain that they can deal out, which I think will be quite a fair bit more than I can ever deal out with the end of a monopod....

mangrove finds

At the end of a marvelous mucky day at Lim Chu Kang mangroves, we emerge from the mud to find Robert in the most comfortable spot that you could possibly find there.

As Chay Hoon and Darwin (with his fresh knee-high mud boots) moved in for the group picture, Robert informs them not to step on the traffic cone. Apparently it marks a spot where someone recently took a dump. As shortly evident from the smell, and large cloud of happy feasting flies!

What a great way to spend National Day!

Lizard myth? No longer...

Everytime when I go Sentosa and see the 'Monitor Lizard Crossing' signs along the road, I wondered, are there really monitor lizards?

Today, it answered me everything.

I was walking very slowly, in fear of stepping on unexpected animals such as frogfish, stonefish, or even stingray until I saw something black and long wriggled in front of me. I thought it's one of the tenacles of a black octopus & I called for Tom.

"Hey! There's an octopus here! A big, black one!"

Tom looked at me with a surprised look

I kept an eye on the moving 'tenacle' until I saw a 'snout'

"No wait, it's a moray eel!!"

Tom was still looking at me with the surprised look

With my eye still fixed on that creature, I saw claws.

"No no no...holy *beep*! It's a...a....a...*stumbled upon words*..MONITOR LIZARD!!"

Tom quickly rushed over my location.

Both of us went 'Wowwww' coz probably it's the first time we see it underwater. The monitor lizard (Varanus salvator)is slightly a metre long & it keeps moving away from us as we approached it. So we sneaked behind & in front of him to catch the as-excellent-as-possible footage of it.

I believed Tom had a pretty hard time trying to capture footage of it coz...He had to sink himself into the water & accidentally swallowed some murky seawater as the strong currents crashed upon the shore. Oh well, next time we must really bring along our eye masks & snorkel tubes to places like this.

We spent like 45mins checking out the fellow underwater until it swam away further into the open sea & so, we tried to look for other things to shoot before the tide comes in.

As we faced the shore, Tom spotted another monitor lizard. This time, double the size! *gasps* Tom quickly ran upshore to take close-up but the smart fellow spotted him & scurried on the sandy shore, climbed up the cliff & into the deep vegetation.

Gone.

We then decided it's time to depart. We returned upshore to retrieve our belongings until I spotted a trail of 'claw'-prints beside our bags.
Geez!
Luckily we didnt bring any cat food (which are used as bait) along, if not, the monitor lizards might have ransacked our bags and ate them up.

One of the monitor lizards also left a pool of 'souvenirs' for us. A pool of uric acid. Thanks.

This is my first close encounter with Varanus salvator,by just 30cm apart,and now I'm totally convinced about the presence of monitor lizards in Sentosa.

Yet Another Mystery

Walking along the shores at night, we always catch brief glimpses of blue bioluminescence, and shining our torch on the spot to try to catch the creature producing it almost inevitably ends in just a vague idea of a rapidly spinning organism nearly too tiny to see. This has been going on for months, and seems to be present in all the North-Eastern shores we visit.

After numerous attempts, Ria finally managed to get a shot of the creature (an amazing feat, no doubt). It was tiny! Look at the algae next to it, you can see the individual cells. Also compare it to the size of the sand grains.



Here it is pictured as it is (probably) about to be consumed by the worm beside it (the pink segmented thing), which probably is the reason for the luminescing. The luminescence also seems to appear when we accidentally step on one in the dark (quite inevitable since they're all over the shore we can't actually see them until they luminesce in our footprint). Anyway, now that we can see it, we still have no idea what it is.

We believe it to be a copepod (pronounced koh-pee-pod), which is a type of crustacean (like the crabs and shrimps). Barnes describes them as small (most ranging from <1mm to 5mm) creatures, which are mostly marine. Copepods do not have compound eyes, and have a median naupliar eye that is "a typical and conspicuous feature of most copepods" (see the black dot?). He also says that many luminescent species have been reported. According to the book, over 8500 species in this class have been described, and it goes on to describe some of the highly diverse features of subgroups of this class in greater detail. Unfortunately, we need to get a microscope to see the details of this particular one.

It never fails to amaze me how little we actually know about the world around us. Half an hour ago I didn't know anything about copepods. Now I know a little bit more, but it barely scratches the surface of what's really out there. Anyone who can remedy my ignorance is very welcome to do so.

Amazingly enough, a quick online search shows many people who study these tiny, nearly unheard of creatures, presumably because of their abundance, and the fact that they are an important link in the food chain.

Copepod links:
World of Copepoda, NMNH

Other useless copepod facts:
What do you call a person who studies copepods? A copepodologist! :)

What are buddies for ... ? =)

24 July 05, afternoon, a good time to try and revisit Pulau Salu.

The boatman had said before that we need to dive Pulau Salu on high tides, and the place is prone to stronger currents. Pulau Hantu vis was terrible in the earlier part of the month, so we wanted to visit Pulau Salu and see if it was any different.. The last time that we were there, the visibility was about 6-7m, which is actually better than what we ever had at Pulau Hantu ..

But this time round, it is just about 2m blurry greenish visibility, just like what we had at Pulau Hantu earlier on, save that there was no strong currents...

Ten divers, none of us saw anything fantastic, few fish, lots of hard and soft corals, but cannot really appreciate due to the visibility ... I was diving alone, as my buddy had lost me within five minutes of descent, and I was only in 2m depth, trying very hard to get my way into deeper depths to find more stuff...

Then, I saw a piece of rag-looking thing waving in the water, and went to take a closer look. It turned out to be a huge seahare!!

























No, make it TWO!!!!!


























I have seen nudibranch Ribescia Tyroni doing tailgating, but I didnt know seahares are capable of that as well... and it is not just "hooking" onto the tail, it is literally resting its head on the poor buddy!! hohohoho... I spent at least half an hour with these two fellas, snapping away, trying to get decent pictures through the murky 1-2m visibility ...

Dont believe it is big? Look at this!


























And I was officially declared the ONLY one who saw something GOOD!!! Wooooohohohohohohohooooo...!!!!!