Starry night on Sekudu

Pulau Sekudu, wildfilms' favourite place, is a great way to start the low spring tide season for the year!

It's 4am and we're off!

This small islet off Chek Jawa is incredibly rich and never fails to amaze.

As usual, Chay Hoon and Ron magicked up some nudibranchs, slugs and flatworms. Thankfully none too tiny (I've upped the minimum size to 2cm, since a 1cm lower limit still results in what seems to me, specimens that are impossible to take without a stereoscopic microscope). This beautiful Chromodoris sp. just made the new size limit..

The fishes we love were aplenty: colourful filefishes, small cardinalfishes and this dazzling Diamond wrasse (Haliochoeres dussumieri). Fortunately, we didn't encounter our not-so-favourite fish, the stingray.

An intertidal trip is not complete without an octopus sighting. Fortunately, we are seldom disappointed and usually get to see at least one every trip. This particular octopus doesn't seem to be the usual kind that we commonly encounter. We saw something similar last year at Changi. Perhaps these kind are only more common on our Northern shores? So many things we have yet to learn about our shores.

Our Northern shores are particularly exciting for the wide variety of echinoderms that can be found there. Echinoderms include sea urchins: and the pink pencil sea urchin and white sea urchin were abundant today.

Another member of the group are brittlestars. These seem to be out in force today. In all shapes, sizes and colours. The speediest of the echinoderms, brittlestars are also highly sensitive to light. These tiny creatures slither off rapidly so they are quite a challenge to shoot.

Pulau Sekudu teems with everyone's favourite: the starfishes. As usual, there were lots of big Knobbly sea stars in all shades from red, pink to white. But today,we encountered a sea star we've never seen before!

Luidia maculata has eight arms and is a handsome and fast moving animal. Apparently, it is a carnivore and eats other echinoderms! What a scary sea star!

Today we also noticed an abundance of tiny little bug-like creatures. They infested everything: seaweeds, sea cucumbers, sponges. Including our booties and our gear. It was impossible to remove them.

As usual, sunrise means the tide has come in and it's time to pack up, go home and catch some zz's. Dr Chua Ee Kiam gets the shot with Chek Jawa in the background. I was too tired to even switch lenses..

Low spring tide season: messed up sleeping schedules, endless washing of gear, charging countless batteries. But we LIVE for it! Tomorrow, yet another adventure ...

Want to join us on our trips? Just drop Ria an email at hello@wildsingapore.com. You can come along just to see the shores for yourself, or to help out in the filming of our shores. Season ends Aug 06!

back!!

As Wai would've put it, I "disappeared from the face of the earth!" Yes, indeed it's my honours and final year in NUS and doing a degree and project which is exactly my most passionate passion will take a lot more time than usual (not that I wanted to spend that much time anyway). But I digress.

Pris has been out of action for such a long time!! And today, when I finally began the third super low season, I was never happier. Sure, I've grown up, learnt new stuff, seen some sides of the nature/conservation game blah blah blah, but my heart still throbbed excitedly when I got off dad's car and unlatched base camp's gates. The ol' base camp, now with new rulers(LOL, the cats), but way neater, cleaner and now with added fondness and familiarity. Greeted by Ria and her hearty laughter and Chay Hoon's amicable smile, I felt a load off my back. The start of the super-lows always signified the end of exams, but this time, it signified the complete end of my degree course in NUS. This transition into the 'working world' will most likely affect the amount of time and opportunities i get to go on entire rounds of trips but I wished it were not so.

I speak of the throbbing in my heart when entering base camp, but the places we wild things go, are another level altogether. The anticipation I experienced ol' Mr Chua's bumboat, the way my heartbeat slowed and then erupted into a racing series of thuds.... you get the idea. I was nervous, having not handled Mama-cam for a while, shaky-handed and unsure if i'd be able to spot stuff like i used to.. but I still enjoyed every bit of it. I did spot some stuff, and hopefully captured some usable footage. Sekudu was, as always, teeming with wildlife. This time, besides the usual, there was a new find, an eight-armed Luidia. sp. It was the first time I observed a swimming anemone swim, too.

I love these trips. This includes the people too. Truly, I felt I belonged somewhere ever since I made this small step for my love of nature and wildlife.

Coral spawning

I was given the fantastic opportunity to observe and help document the annual coral mass spawning event. We joined NParks on the MV Seaborne, out to Raffles Lighthouse, to view this spectacular sight.

So this trip constituted many firsts for me - first time on such a luxurious boat, first night dive in Singapore, and of course, first live coral spawning! :)

As my official task was to capture the images as my buddy (The Great Tempeh, Spawn-Hunter Extraordinaire), way more experienced in coral-ID, recorded the spawning colonies down, for once there are many photos! Here are some of them.

Eggs and sperm bundles all ready to go...



Going off in dribs and drabs...




A colourful reef denizen is out to catch the show too.

Some colonies release their gametes in a string - like toothpaste coming out of the tube.


Top: Acanthastrea; Bottom: Pectinia was particularly interesting to observe since I didn't previously know where the polyps were located...


Favites releasing huge amounts of gametes all at once. As an observer hovering above, finding myself suddenly engulfed in a cloud of potential new corals was quite an interesting experience.


Platygyra releasing bundles of eggs and sperm - see the pink/white areas in the bundle?

Our reefs are quite alive indeed!

Pulau Hantu: fascinating for non-divers too!

Early yesterday morning, a small group of adventurous people joined wildfilms to see Hantu for themselves at low tide. They included volunteer guides from Semakau and Chek Jawa, as well as a couple who had been on a guided walk at Pulau Semakau and curious to see our other shores as well.


Going at low tide, especially before dawn, allows a brief but fascinating glimpse of the Hantu's rich reefs and shores.

At low tide, the water clears up. And in the dark, our living corals are in 'full bloom'. Like this gorgeous Brain coral (Symphyllia sp.)


And you can take your time to have a real close look at them.

The reef flats surrounding the little island teem with lving corals large and small.


We saw some corals that we have rarely encountered elsewhere, including this amazing colony of Spine coral (Hydronophora sp.). A few tiny transparent shrimps happily frolicked among the tentacles.


And a really nice patch of delicate Leaf coral (Pavona sp.)


These hard corals provide shelter and food for a wide range of animals. We encountered the usual assortment of flatworms, fishes, crabs and other creatures.

The treat of the day was a brief encounter with a busy Yellow-lipped sea snake (Laticauda colubrina).


These snakes have to come ashore to nest on reef flats. In the past, they used to nest on Pulau Sudong before it was reclaimed. They have since become more frequent visitors to Pulau Hantu and Pulau Semakau as well as our patch reefs. If Pulau Hantu's reef flats are affected by development, there will even fewer places for these beautiful creatures to inhabit.

At sunrise, some of us went to look at the Southern mouth of the central lagoon near the jetty at Hantu Besar. On the way there, we saw a set of large prints on the sand. Probably monitor lizard, but possibly also otter: Debby said she saw one at Hantu recently. And otters have also been sighted at Pulau Semakau.


As elsewhere around the man-made seawalls of Hantu, corals are abundant on the reef flats near the jetty at the mouth of the lagoon. They are also found inside the shallow lagoon which is mostly completely exposed even at moderately low tides.


We were rather concerned, however, to see a film of oil on the water draining out of the lagoon. Where was it coming from? It was painful to watch the oil swirl around the living corals, colonial anemones and other animals that obviously cannot run away.


The lagoon also has patches of tape seagrass. Seagrasses provide a special habitat that complements reef life.


There are several mature mangrove trees in the middle of the lagoon. Mangroves too, are another shore habitat that complements reef life. Near these trees are many Common sea stars. We saw also stacks of mating sea stars in the sandy bottoms of the other shallow swimming lagoons on Hantu.


Hantu is blessed with a range of shore habitats: mangroves, sandy shores, seagrass areas, coral rubble areas and living reefs. All on a tiny little island that is easily explored by non-swimmers and non-divers.

As we approached the mangrove trees, we noticed the huge jet of stuff being churned out just off Hantu near Pulau Busing and Pulau Ular...

This is the same thing that Debby and her team of ReefFriends survey volunteers observed a day before. Could this be causing the film of oil?

Besides frantically documenting the marinelife, wildfilms also interviewed a small group of people who camped overnight just to have a look at Hantu. As well as a father who comes regularly to Hantu, to ensure that his kids experienced what he did as a child. The simple joys of the sea and an unspoilt shore. He was most concerned to hear of efforts to develop an artificial reef on Hantu.

As we left Hantu with the incoming tide, we could see swarms of fish in the relatively clear waters, swimming about the corals just under the jetty.

Wildfilms feel a greater urgency to document the marine life on the shores of Hantu. With the reclamation of Terumbu Bayan, the northern reef flats of Hantu are likely to be particularly impacted.

We plan to make more regular trips to Hantu, to document what is happening there. If you would like to join us, email Ria at hello@wildsingapore.com

More about Pulau Hantu and plans to 'build a reef' there as well as more photos of what non-divers can see on the shores of Pulau Hantu.