Saved From The Cooking Pot.....

was this Lobster that we had sighted during one of our intertidal trips this year. It was caught in a gill net when we chanced upon it.

At first we thought that it has suffered the same fate as with the other marine life caught in the net, that is, DEAD.

Then it started to wriggle a bit! It's ALIVE! And so we cut the entangled lines to free it.


We put it in a pool of shallow water for it to relax and not long after, its instinct kicked in and started to make a dash for the deeper water.

Glad to see it make its way back into the deeper water. Saved from the cooking pot from the time being. :p

This is my 3rd sighting of wild Lobsters in local water. The first was during a intertidal trip with Wildfilms to St John's Island in which we sighted two Lobsters which, you guess it, were caught in a drift net too. The 2nd time was during a reef survey dive with one not in a net but hiding in its natural habitat, under a rock crevice.

Hopefully the next intertidal trip sighting would be one not in a net. :o)

Sadness @ Pulau Jong.....

I was out diving at Pulau Jong for BlueWaterVolunteers ReefFriends reef survey this morning.

And why am I sad? Well.....it's not because that I didn't get to see any nudibranch during the survey dives but this,



We were laying the tape for Transect 3 at the deeper end when we noticed that there were huge amount of large pieces of coral rubble scattering around in piles! Both my buddy and I were wondering what's going on? Why so many "looks like recently dead" corals lying around? Basically almost the entire transect 3 was laid over these rubble.

It was only when we surfaced after finishing Transect 5, we learned from Jeff that it was the same at the shallow end too. OMG! That mean a possible impact area of more than 3m wide by 25m long!

The big picture only came to our sights when we went down to do our Transect 3 & 4, then we get to see how serious the damage is like! It's basically heartbreaking!

Look at all these corals!, They are all been overturned!


This one too!


And this one being slashed!


The Sea Fan was not spare too! :o(

Gosh!!!! What's happening? Why such a large area of damaged corals?!?! From the size of it, Jeff thinks that it might be caused by a big anchor being dragged across or by a barge that run aground.



Besides overturned corals, a couple of corals were also bleaching!

Sigh, the impacts by human-beings directly and indirectly. :o(

On a slightly happier note, Jong still has some nice corals to show us;


and other marine life!




Nudibranch! From top-down : Slender Ceratosoma nudibranch (Ceratosoma gracillimum), Black-margined nudibranch (Glossodoris atromarginata) and various kind of Phyllid nudibranch.


First time seeing a Stinging Sea Urchin (Echinothrix sp.) in local water for me! Usually get to see more of Long-spined Black Sea Urchin.


Here's a closer look at it.



Cute little False Clown Anemonefish and Tomato Anemonefish !


Last but not least, a tiny shrimp on a Red Featherstar.

Crabby Day @ Tanah Merah.....

I was out to explore a new part of Tanah Merah shore yesterday and yes, at predawn again.

It was a crabby day! Cos saw quite a number of crabs! :op

Here they are;


A Red Egg Crab. It is poisonous and thus, should not be eaten! Cooking does not destroy their toxins.


A Stone Crab/Thunder Crab. Why also called a Thunder crab? Haha...it is a belief that only a clap of thunder will make it let go should the crab pinches you. Well.....I won't want to try out to see if this is true or not, so it will be good not to handle them in the first place.


A Blue Swimming crab caught a little Rabbitfish? for breakfast.


An Arrow-head Spider crab was seen on a patch of seaweeds


Saw the Spotted Hermit Crab again. There was also another smaller one which I didn't take picture of.


Other small Hermit crabs can be seen too.



Besides crabs, came across this shrimp that was trying to make itself to look like part of the brown seaweeds.


Was happy to see baby Mushroom corals growing on the rocks surface.


Came across two Long-spined Black Sea Urchin glazing on the rocks too. Their test are about the size of a ping-pong ball.


There's a bunch of Tape Seagrass in the lagoon and on one strand was a little Variable Fang-Blenny.


Whereas some other prefer to hide among the seaweeds.


I don't have many photo of Gobies cos they are too fast to take a pic. But am glad to add another one to my database.


This one was lying very still on the rock.


This looks like a Wandering cowrie. It was busy glazing about when I saw it.


A surprise find for me would be this Arabian Cowrie. This cowrie is listed as 'Vulnerable' on the Red List of threatened animals of Singapore, due to habitat loss and over-collection.

Another great and impressed trip I would say again.

For other sightings, take a look at
- Ria's Wild Shores of Singapore blog
- James's Singapore Nature blog