Finally made it to Sisters Islands (also known as The Sisters, or more properly known as Pulau Subar Darat and Pulau Subar Laut) again. We missed surveying this site last year, due to very bad (zero) visibility on our last trip.

The visibility wasn’t great today, about 2.5m, but manageable. With only 5 of us today (and one not trained at all), we had our work cut out for us - Jun and myself tackled the shallow, while Chay Hoon, Yan and Wei Yong tackled the deep transect. The coral transect went relatively smoothly - there were some large colonies there and it made the data recording somewhat easier.

A large Symphyllia coral … the slate is about 15cm long.

I did notice quite a few overturned corals (11, to be exact) and fragments of plate corals. I also observed some aluminum frames (probably from NUS experiments) scattered across the reef, like a hurricane gone through. After the survey, while swimming back to the boat, I found out why - I found the remains of an anchor, still attached to its chain and a significant length of the rope, spread out across the reef! Lacking the cutting tools to remove the rope, I had to leave the remains there. But it should not be difficult to find the anchor again - a job for another time.

An overturned coral head. Lifting it to shallower waters was not possible, but at least I managed to push it back upright.

During the fish survey, right at the start of the 4th transect, I spotted a fish I had never seen before on our reefs - a Bumphead bannerfish (Heniochus varias)! Fish survey forgotten, I managed to snap a series of blurred photos of the fish.

First in a series of blur, sediment-filled photos of the bannerfish.

The second blur shot of the bannerfish, at a slightly better angle.

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