2nd reefwalk of 2008. Love this shot. One of our hunter-seekers (Marie?) checking out the intertidal.
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YJ showing a family the ever-popular common seastars. You look like a pro girl.
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Howard with his group of wide-eyed reefwalkers.
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XL doing her stuff.
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Hmm.. wonder what Abby’s showing with her fingers… perhaps she was showing how your booties can go through the venomous dorsal spines of a certain very grumpy looking fish. a fish that looks like this…?

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It’s MS’s fave bud.. Mr Stonefish.. again!

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“The venom hurts so much that some people who’ve been stung have wanted the limb amputated. It can cause shock, paralysis, tissue death, and even fatalities if not treated within a few hours. The stonefish has at least one beneficial use. It’s a very expensive sashimi called okoze in Japan.” - Environmental Graffiti

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Then I have to mention this waaay cute baby butterflyfish spotted by one of the TPJC students. It was about as big as a 10 cent coin! sharp-eyes! Good chance to mention the false eye-spot at the tail end and how its true eye is always within a coloured stripe. Also how butterflies are good reef health indicators as they are coral polyp eaters.

“For those species of butterflyfish which are obligate corallivores, a decline in the health of a reef, manifested by decreasing food quality of the stressed coral polyps, will result in a decrease in the abundance and diversity of these species and an increase in territory size, feeding rate and agonistic encounters as mated pairs attempt to maintain their nutritional intake by expanding their territories to include more coral colonies” - coral reef indicators website

Thanks to MS for the photos.

Till the next reefwalk. Cheers.

Yesterday we had our very last public walk of the year. I know that there are still many people who are interested in coming for our walks but we are a bit overdue for some training of new guides. Do bear with us and stay tune for the dates of next year’s walk! In the meantime, do sign up with us if you are interested in joining our team of guides in introducing Kusu’s intertidal life to others!

Prior to any intertidal walk, guides would need to give a safety briefing to the participants. We do want to keep everybody safe while enjoying Singapore’s natural environment.

Followed by a quick introduction to the beach and lagoon as the tide goes out

In the meantime, our seekers (Abby and MS) have already been sent down with our little tags and containers to help the guides in finding things to introduce to their groups. And yes, we collected back all our little tools of the trade as the tide came in.

Onward to where all the action is! To the intertidal area!

Here is where our team of guides where in their element. Talking about the wildlife found here. From all the little shrimps and crabs, to sea stars and sea cucumbers, to corals and sponges, and even snails!

“Uncle Daniel” telling the children about the common seastar

Look at the field of seastars!!! All preparing to mass produce many more little seastar babies. Can you spot the non-5-armed seastars?

Another member of the echinoderms (”spiny-skin”), the bumpy black sea cucumber. Looks rather different from the common seastar but they are still related all the same, on account of their texture and radial symmetry amongst other things. This individual was quite stressed for some reason as can be seem from these sticky white threads that were spewed out…

examples of shrimps that we frequently (and very easily encounter) on Kusu’s shores

mantis shrimp. one of the more difficult-to-spot-difficult-to-trap shrimps. this particular individual was rather curious as it still popped out of it’s hidey-hole after a failed attempt at getting it out for people to admire. even posed nicely despite me literally shoving my camera in its face for a macro shot. not all mantis shrimps are so drab looking. the ones deeper down in the sea are actually very colorful!

we get to see anemone shrimp on almost all the walks but this is the first time I got to see a pair of them on the same anemone! like many marine animals, the larger one is actually the female, and she does look like she’s carrying eggs too! the male is a little more difficult to spot since it is smaller and the white and purple bands are far less distinctive.

there seems to be quite a bit of excitement at this “3-tag station”

and it’s mr stonefish again!! (this time minus the super-enthu participant) judging from the size and the only-mother-can-love face, we suspect that it’s the same fella we saw met last month. Also mentioned here. Another reason why we think it’s the same one: It made some movement/noise as MS was going past it, resulted in it being spotted. Perhaps it was giving a *snort* of recognition at MS our BWV shirt? It was still a brilliant example to go with the take-home-message of being having proper footwear when exploring nature areas

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Of course, ReefWalk is not just about bringing people around on a intertidal eco-tour. It’s also about the group of wacky people who all share this love for nature and the passion to share with others. Our resident RW pirate orang asli, MS, wrapped up this walk with a mini guide appreciation session during the boat ride back. Just to make this last public walk of 2007 all the more memorable for us. (Thanks dude! *round of applause*) Everybody was clearly in a celebratory mood. (p/s. There’s something missing in all the photos here. Can you find it?)

Our 3 newly graduated guides: Yujie, Regina, and Hanchong

And the bunch of long suffering guides ^^
(Abby, Dionne, Ching Ling, Gillian, Howard, Jun)

More photos from Abby

Until the low tides next year folks!
= Jun =

These two Mondays have been totally different in term of “bluishness”. This Monday gave me some kind of withdrawal syndrome as I did nothing but fix my car and some photos over last weekend, while last last weekend was packed with ReefWalk and HantuBlog dive (or perhaps I was too tired on that Monday to feel any bluishness). So, to get rid of the blue, what else can be better than reminiscing the event I miss doing on weekend?

After four months and a couple of oversea trips to Malaysian Borneo and Indonesia, I was finally back guiding on the Sep 29 ReefWalk. Last ReefWalk we bid farewell to Wai who has gone study at N. Carolina, USA. This ReefWalk we welcome back Jani, who has completed her MSc at Newcastle, U.K. *clapclapclap* Thanks to her and Dionne, we saw lots of AMAZING stuff during the walk!!!

what other Cs would you hunt & seek for in Singapore? no prize for guessing
these are mine: Cuttlefish, Clownfish, Catfish, Chromodoris, Corals, Cowries, Crabs, and er.. seaCucumber?

I’m not going to talk much about the sightings as Juanhui has probably summed it up nicely. Just throw in a couple of nudibranch(s) for your viewing pleasure:

blue dragon, Pteraeolidia ianthina

Chromodoris lineolata

Cap it with “the reason why we MUST wear proper footwear and avoid walking into water pool”:

my second stonefish in the lagoon

and something that puzzled me for awhile:

looks like toy-ball, feel like toy-ball, but should be a sponge

Of course, other than the creatures, we always enjoy

the satisfaction of sharing knowledge and passion,

the thrill of riding new boat,

and the FRIENDSHIP!

Guides out there, if you miss all these, join us come Oct 27, the very last walk of 2007 . Surprise awaits!

= MS =

What a glorious day it was out on Kusu Island on the 21st of April 2007. There was a high turnout of guides at the last minute and many OJT guides got a taste of guiding-full-on for the first time. They did a great job and were probably good enough without the last minute mugging at Marine South Pier. Participant turnout was great too, with very few no shows.

The skies threatened to open up on the way to Kusu but when we reached the island, the weather was perfect. A bit cloudy but we managed to catch the sunrise.

Critters were out in full force and I personally saw at least 4 octopuses (octopi?). I’m sure the participants saw at least one each. Apart from the anemones with shrimp and seastars (which have become resident sightings by now), we also saw a fire clam (wow!), a small squid (cute!), some jellyfish (yay!), onchidiums (slugs!) and many other thingies.

I had a wonderful time just pottering around before setting up the booth. Business was great that day and I even sold off one of the browsing copies of the Chek Jawa Guidebook. That was highly embarrassing- selling a tattered book with the words “browsing copy” scrawled on the front. But it goes to show that Singaporeans are getting very interested in our own local marine life. One participant even signed up to be a reefwalk guide on the spot.

If you wrote a blog post of that day, do let us know so we can link you on our blog! Read about some other people’s accounts of that walk:

cWitch’s multiply site

Juanhui’s blog

See you at Kusu Island next time!