Yesterday, went diving at Pulau Hantu through an invitation from Reef Friends Xplore! to the Wildfilms crews. They were having a trial dive before they kick off the programme to the public.
Reef Friends Xplore! is a local waters dive guiding programme by the joint effort between
Blue Water Volunteers,
Hantu Bloggers and
Gill Divers. They trained a group of volunteer divers to guide divers in exploring the marine life found at the reefs of Pulau Hantu and Kusu Island.
The programme aims to introduce/show local underwater marine life to divers, increase awareness and educate the public about marine conservation issues in Singapore. If you have never dive in local water or are interested to know what's beneath, keep a look out for their first public dive. :O)
Now back to the dive.....After I have rigged up all my equipments, jumped into the water and finally descended. I found something was missing. Yes, STUPOKS strike! I left my camera on board the bum-boat! So no photo from my first dive. Luckily, there was no sighting of unusual creatures or I would be knocking my head against the wooden beam of the boat. And so a brief summary of the first dive is that there were lots of Blue dragon nudibranchs,
phyllidia nudibranchs, a
glossodoris atromarginata nudibranch, two Icon Sea stars, Sea Urchins, Flatworms, two 30cm long Yellow-spotted Rabbitfishes and a Carpet Eel Blenny (it was peeking out from a hole and we happened to stare at each other for a while before it disappeared into the hole).
After we had our surface interval, we prepared for our second dive to explore the patching reefs. This time, I remembered to bring my camera down. So here's some photos from the second dive:
Nudibranchs : The ones with white bumps or blue/yellow bumps are
phyllidia sp. The yellow one with black margin is
glossodoris atromarginata.
Flatworms : There were lots of them. Crawling on the sea bed and corals.
Sea Urchin.
Mushroom Coral.
Fishes : There's a Freckled Goatfish and offen seen Copper-banded Butterflyfish.
Crinoids/Featherstars : Lots of them, in varities of colours, on the Sea Whips and Sea Fans. And there were some hiding under rocks crevices.
Hydroid : This innocent looking plant-like thing is actually an animal! It will give you a nasty sting and causes rashes that itch for months!
And yes, it is definitely that you will see more things with guides. Thanks Gina (volunteer dive guide) for showing me all the stuffs and Brendan (volunteer dive guide OJT) as a buddy. :O)
