COLOURFUL CLOUDS: October 2007

Hear What This Creature Has To Say.....

Ever since the Mass Death early this year, we have not seen any Knobbly Seastar at Chek Jawa. And from Kok Sheng's project of monitoring CJ's recovery, we know the marine creatures are slowly making their way back at CJ. So you can imagine how happy I was when I found this guy at the Coral Rubbles.

I can hear it says :

Enjoy The Sunset. It's Beautiful.....

Two different days, Two different places, Same timing. I stopped at what I was doing and just enjoyed a short but yet marvellous show put up by Mother Nature.

This was the Sunset at Cyrene Reef.

and this at Pulau Ubin.

So, if you can't wake up early to catch Sunrise, there's an equally splendid Sunset to watch too. All you need to do is stop and enjoy. :o)

大自然之美．保護．破壞 (The Beauty Of Nature.Conserve.Destroy).....

那碧藍的海（雖然我國的海不怎麼籃）。
The BLUE Sea (even though our sea in Singapore is not so blue).

那多樣性的海洋生物。
The diversity of marine creatures.

那翠綠的樹木與草地。
The GREEN Trees & Grass

那絢爛多彩的花朵。
The COLOURFUL Flowers.

有紅，有黃，有橘，還有紫。
There's RED,YELLOW,ORANGE & PURPLE.

那蔚藍的天空，
The ULTRAMARINE Sky,

白雲飄飄。
With Fluffy White Clouds.

大自然的美是那麼的淳樸那麼地令人感動。
The beauty of Nature is so simple that you will be moved by it.

大自然可以是一位藝術家，
Nature can be an artist,

也可以是一位治療心靈的醫生。
or a doctor who can cure your broken soul.

但是，人纇啊人纇，為了本身的利益與貪婪。
不斷地在破壞大自然。
However, because of human beings self-interest and greeds, Nature is being destroy.

因為工業化，二氧化碳的含量急剧增加。
因為人為因素如燃燒化石燃料和砍伐樹木等等，增強了溫室效應而導致暖化現樣。
Because of industrialisation, there's an increase in the amount of carbon dixoide.
Because of some human's activities like burning fossil fuel and clearing and logging of jungles which contributed to Green house effect and thus global warming.

而暖化也相信是導致珊瑚白化的原因之一。
And global warming is believe to be one of the factors that cause bleaching in Corals.

一些人纇不負責任的行為也導致其他生物的傷害。
And irresponsible actions of some human beings also cause harmful effects to other species that coexist on this earth.

現在就行動！不要再對大自然或環境做有害的事。
你的行動就是好的開始，不論大小。
你可以從基本做起。
例如自備購物袋或停止使用吸管（試想你會在家用吸管喝水嗎？我想大多數人不會用對嗎？所以在外用餐時不用有這個需要吧？）或廢物再循環。
Act Now! Stop doing harmful things to Nature/Environment. Every effort counts. You can start in a small way like bring your own shopping bag or stop using drinking straws when out dinning (just think, if you don't drink from one at home, why would you need one when out dinning?) or simply recycle things.

切記：”這個地球給予足夠的資源來滿足每一個人的需要，而非每一個人的貪婪“~~聖雄莫罕達斯．甘地
Just remember: “The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed”~~Mahatma Gandhi

Blog Action Day

這篇文章是為響應《部落格行動日：環境》而寫。
This blog entry is made in support of the Blog Action Day for Environment.

ReefFriends @ Pulau Jong.....

My previous trips to Pulau Jong were with Wildfilms during low tides to explore the intertidal area. Today, it was something different. I was diving at Pulau Jong with ReefFriends. This is my second Reef Check OJT (On-Job-Training).

The vis was a comfortable 2-3m at around 6m depth.

I was assigned to do the mobile invertebrates survey at the deeper transect. My buddy was Gina who was doing the fish survey. This will be Gina's last reef check with ReefFriends before she flies off to the United States of A for her work posting and will only be back in 2009. We are going to miss her!

We started off in slight current but it eventually picked up towards the last two transects. I had to fight against the currents to get back to the start of the transect so that I can follow the buoy line to ascend. However, I was drifted far off from the boat and together with two other volunteers, we had to be picked up by the boat. The strong current was also the reason that Gina and I did only one dive today as we decided to abort the 2nd dive. Here's a pic to show how far some of us had drifted away from the boat due to the strong currents. Can you spot two divers in the pic?

Anyway, here's some pics that I managed to shoot at the deeper transect;

Crinoid(Featherstar) hiding under crevice.

Talking about star, here's another kind. It's a Cushion Star. And I counted two for the transect.

Only managed to count two Flatworms today and here's one of them.

and of course, a mobile invertebrates survey will definitely consist of Nudibranch.

Lots of Blue Dragon Nudibranch(Pteraeolidia ianthina) and here's some other nudibranch spotted.

Managed to spot two sap-sucking sea slugs too! Here's one;

So there you are, the pics from today dive. And I am looking forwards to the next reef survey!

Pretty Flowers On Pulau Ubin.....

A little exploration over at the Butterfly Hill at Pulau Ubin this morning after my Sensory Trail guiding. The flowers were so pretty that I couldn't resist taking a few snapshots.

A small beautiful field of white flowers.

Here's the others;

Besides the flowers, one can find quite a number of Caterpillars too.

A Nice Evening Visit To Changi.....

This is the first time that we pay a visit to this part of Changi during an evening low tide. And today trip was fruitful as we saw quite a number of creatures.

There's lots of fishes (Flatfish, Scorpionfish, Filefish, Rabbitfish, Dragonet and the list goes on) and the Brittle Sea Stars were out in full force. They were everywhere on patches of seaweed or in pools of water. Here's one that I had took a pic of.

Among the seagrass, a tiny little squid was spotted.

A Mantis Shrimp out and about hunting for dinner.

And here's a beautiful Tube Anemone.

At Changi, one can also see a lots of Sea pencil. And this one has a Porcelain crab on it.

When there's a Sea pencil, be sure to find this Armina Nudibranch near it as they feed on Sea pencil.

Besides Armina, the other Sea Slug that was spotted was this Woolly Sap-sucking Sea Slug(Elysia sp.). There were many on the Seaweeds.

Another animal that's also in abundance was the white Sea Urchin. Here's two pic of them with their choice of decorations; One likes Seagrass while the other preferred a part of a crab pincer.