A reef walk to Kusu, in the middle of the pilgrimage month, is fraught with obstacles, from road closures, to hordes of people at the jetty, to uncooperative (or maybe just disorganised) ferry operators.

Luckily, the road closures to Marina South ceased by early afternoon, but the hordes of people at the jetty meant that getting our reef walkers organised to board the ferry was messier than normal. It didn’t help that the ferry operator provided us with a 80-seater ferry when we had 90 people. It was a good thing that the “extra” people could hop on board a second ferry, also headed for Kusu.

The horde (not all of whom were reefwalkers).

Reefwalkers boarding the ferry.

A second ferry to Kusu? you might ask. Apparently, there was to be a traditional performance at the temple on Kusu that very night (Monkey and Duck were in attendance there, although duck wanted to go on the reef walk instead) - hence the horde of people at the jetty.

The confusion of the ferry operators continued, when they informed us, upon arriving at Kusu, that our ferry would leave at 9.30pm, instead of 8.30pm as we had originally planned. We wondered about this, since the ferries that brought us here didn’t go anywhere after they dropped us off, and were tied at the Kusu jetty. I suppose there must have been some cosmic reason for the later departure that mere mortals like us would not be able to fathom.

In any case, with the extra time on our hands, we could then take our time for the walk, and I must say, it was quite a walk. Two groups headed off to the south lagoon, while the other 6 went to the north. The south lagoon, as most of you might know is a bit smaller than the northern one, and muddier, but there was no lack of critters to see.

An octopus-in-a-bag.

And a cuttlefish.

An upside down jellyfish (this is normal behaviour - the tentacles are held up to feed off plankton).

The group I was guiding asked if I could bring them to the northern lagoon, which I agreed to. Apparently other groups had the same idea - as my group was leaving the south lagoon, another group was crossing over from the north.

There were some interesting things to see at the north lagoon as well, despite the fast rising tide.

An anemone, paralysing the tiny fish startled into range of its tentacles by our footsteps. And in the same anemone ….

… An anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) trying to hide in its tentacles.

And further up the lagoon, a dead/dying ghost crab that, upon closer inspection, had a cracked carapace.

This raised an interesting discourse on the impact of our walks on the lagoon - from watching where you step, to minimising the impact by spreading out the groups, and even to the length of time between walks. It also allowed us to get a few photographs of an otherwise elusive creature.

The walk finally ended at about 1030pm, when we waved good-bye to the tired, but hopefully happy, participants at the jetty.

HI everyone,

We’ve been having some trouble with our website and emails lately. The website issues have mostly been resolved, thanks to our web magician Jacki, but email is still a bit cranky. Some of your emails to the “.bluewatervolunteers.org” email accounts might not get through, so, alternative email accounts to write to are:

Reef Walk: [email protected]
Reef Friends: [email protected]

I’ll post again when our problems are all sorted out.

Cheers, Jeff

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 =