It is a dark and quiet night. A full and yellow moon rises above, lighting up the lonely streets of Changi.

Authorities thought they had done a good job of ‘cleaning’ Changi of its late night ‘workers’, but here, a Lady of the Night appears, dressed in her best ‘work’ attire. She scours the area, looking for the perfect catch. And then, the action begins…..

“Oh, Alfie! So big!” — “Wah! Your thing is so long!” — “Oi, Sayang, don’t go in, go out so much lah… I’m in a very uncomfortable position” — “Oh, yeah… that’s good! Do that again…yeah…”

Changi - Just Come Once and You’ll Be Begging for More.

Now let me introduce you my handsome model, Alfie, better known as an Alpheus shrimp. Here’s Alfie posing with his BIG claw and LONG feelers:

And Alfie again, DOING what he does best:

This snapping shrimp entertained me while I was waiting for the tide to go out. He just kept on going, IN and OUT of his burrow, digging, picking bits of shells and stones, decorating his ‘home’. If I had extra camera batteries and like 10 gigs of memory on card, and if I didn’t get a major leg cramp from squatting in an awkward position on the shore for so long, I probably would have made a ‘low budget’ movie out of it. Heh heh…

This blog was actually written a couple of months back but I was saving it for a ‘lull period’ when we had nothing to Klog. Sorry for the ‘RA’ bit at the start! Had to get your attention right? So some of these shots were taken EARLY this morning, and some, on another morning when I was supposed to be ‘somewhere else’ instead of here on a beach, getting excited over little Penaeuses and friends.

Penaeus sp.

So apart from these prawny guys, crabs of all sizes, colours and disguises scurried about. Unfortunately, most of my pictures came out rather blurred; Lack of sleep & food = shaky hands. Got a whole lotta hermit crabs and other dudes up to some hanky panky on the beach too, but I’ll save that for another korny Klog

The original plan for my visit to Changi Beach was to study seaweed and seagrass ‘cos I feel nobody appreciates how useful these are, and how bare, boring and barren the shore would be without them. But I got distracted by so many other dudes!

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