Semakau Walk 22 April 2007

Is Sunday morning, the Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal was not so busy. We arrived at Semakau rather early just in time to catch the beautiful sun rise.CBD can be seen on the right still cover with morning mist.

When we arrived at the tidal area, what a sad thing to see fishes, crabs trapped in the fishing net left behind by someone during high tide.

In order not to hold back the whole group, we continue with the tidal walk and will deal with the net later after the walk.

The first creature that caught our attention is this unidentified worm. Most ribbon worms have proboscis which they use to catch small prey. The proboscis is known to be poisonous.

This snapping shrimp have one of the pincer enlarged and able to make a loud snapping sound. The sound serves to stun potential prey and also to warn off trepassers or predators.
A sandfish sea cucumber that is a much sought after delicacy.
We also saw this Stonefish sea cucumber. Almost all sea cucumber are detrital. When threatened, many species squirt out sticky latex to entangle or irritate the potential predator. These are very difficult to remove.
A beautiful Anemone Shrimp with carpet anemone

A Flatworm
Another Flatworm
A Upside Down Jelly fish. This jellyfish has symbiotic algae in its tentacles, which photosynthesises better with it being upside-down. The jellyfish obtains energy from the food provided by the algae.

A Sunflower Mushroom Coral
Joining inter-tidal walk bring you close to corals and you may even feel/touch it with your hand yourself without all the heavy diving gears or get wet. Both of the corals above are soft corals.

Giant Clam - the largest bivalve in the world. They have symbiotic relationship with green algae similar to corals.

Marginated Glossodoris Nudibranch
A group photo with Knobbly Sea Star
Reef Eel that looks like snake
A Scallop
This tiny fish looks like a Striped eeltail catfish that normally form tightly-packed schools on coral reefs. This could be seperated from the rest.
While on the way back, we remove the net from the tidal area and release all the trapped animals.
The trail that left behind after we removed the net.
While releasing one of the trapped swimming crab, it appears so weak initially after being trapped for more than 6 hours, the pincer is so powerful that it pierce through my finger nail when it was set free.

Another group photo at the South most tip of Singapore.

This is the Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal. We have another fruitful and wonderful trip at Semakau. Thanks to all the enthusiastic visitors from KBR Energy & Chemicals, SRC, NOL & Oracle!

Semakau Tidal Walk on 21st April 07

As this is my first time using Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal (PPFT), I leave my house slightly earlier in order not to get lost and arrive late. When I arrived at PPFT, Helen, July and Ron is already there. To my surprise, Helen spotted an sea anemone inside the Female toilet!!?? Although curious, I did not go and check it out. Ron's was curious too and follow Helen to FEMALE toilet!!! And yes, Ron confirmed that there's a sea anemone inside the Female toilet. Not sure if anyone of them took any photo. Hopefully they did and I can have a look too.

The journey from PPFT to Semakau is about 10mins faster than departing from West Coast Pier. We head straight to the shore immediately after arrived at Semakau. As usual, we need to move very fast while walking through the forest to avoid the bombardment from the Semakau 'kamikaze' - the mosquitoes!! It has been raining for the last one week and has help to increase the population of Semakau Kamikaze. They even chase us up to the mud flat area.

While crossing the seagrass area, we spotted a sandfish sea cucumber right in the middle of the trail.

We saw a cowrie too. As this family of coral reef snails are greatly sought after by shell collectors, they are now very rare in local waters.


Not far from the cowrie, two common sea star were on top of each other happy go lucky... Sea starare using tube feet that emerge from the groves under the arms for feeding and movement.

Fanworm
Anemone


Sunflower mushroom coral


How can we not see one of the biggest sea star in Singapore - the Knobbly sea star.
My group member taking a group photo with two knobbly sea stars!!

Another happy couple taking photo with our celebrity.

This white long bean shape is the egg capsules of unknown marine creatures.
This could be Thuridilla gracilis sea slug. Is consider quite rare at inter-tidal area.



Nudibranch like this Jorunna are molluscs which do not have a shell.The feather-like gills exposed (hence their name - naked gills)

Another beautiful giant clam.

Lots of finger corals

Beautiful Spanish Dancer flatworm

Volcano Barnacle



Lots of sea grapes

Group of Nerites take shelter in this hole on the rock.
The walks end with video presentation from NEA before we return to the mainland.

Khatib Bongsu - so much more to explore, to experience...

This is Part 2 of our adventures at one of the last kampung of Singapore.

If you are thinking of taking nice shot of all the beautiful insect, go early in the morning. Besides the cooling temperature, most importantly, the model (the insect) are not so active and you can take you own sweet time to take the best shot.

One of my favourate subject, water droplets... always give me a very refreshing feel

Most important elements of all living things on earth - sunlightThis tiny Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker try to swallow this big cherry
Night Heron resting on the prop roots of Rhizophora spp

Enjoying Big Breakfast...1st half of the photo showing this amazing spider in a horizontal position...so well camouflage that it don't looks like a spider at all. Only when it change position that we can tell is a spider.

Since Spiderman 3 is just around the corner.... (is this Peter Parker & MJ favourate's hang out place??)Isn't this beautiful?

If you are late... you will miss it!

Unwilling to accept the defeat, the 3rd party waiting for his chance. Mmm... this has been Ron's favourate topic. Check out more actions at his site.The stick insect landed on Ron's hand.

When it is not moving, it looks more like a Halfbeak fish than insect.

If you look carefully, is a crushed turtle that attracted so many flies. Most probably killed by passing traffic.

This is the plant that produced the seed with heart shape on it. It is called Balloon vine or Heart pea.

One of the 'landmark' of Khatib Bongsu - the wooden bridge

How long will this machine be abled to continue bringing fresh air to the fish in the pond?...I really don't know. sigh ....

Another beautiful kampung vanishing soon, where do we go from here???