Without regret

Vik, a tiny town at the southern tip of Iceland, boasts a famous cluster of cliffs and stacks called Reynisdrangar visible from the expansive black beach, permanently obscured by a fog of sea spray that engulfs the entire coast with an inpenetrable, milky lens. The beach probably knows no such thing as a breeze, its entire length misted with a haze stirred wildly by the turbulent open water that crashes heavily onto the rugged Icelandic coastline, wild as her violent geologic past. Braving the biting wind that makes even opening the eyes a painful struggle, and then in a moment, drawing in deeply, the cold, damp Icelandic air - it leaves you wanting, feeling small, weak, afraid.

Beautiful silence

Jokulsarlon, a glacier lagoon in south Iceland, is stunning in countless ways. Most breathtaking, perhaps, is its deafening silence punctuated with the gentle dripping purrs of the ice melting, while your serene reverence for the almost holy atmosphere can suddenly be shaken by a crack of shattering ice, followed by a satisfying splash of water. The soft rippling stirred by playful seals is only rudely interrupted by the half-hourly amphibious ride that clumsily ferries shivering tourists into the lagoon. And to the relief of the awestruck wanderer strolling by the black sand bank, it quickly disappears behind the larger ice floes. He is grateful for the luxury of crisp, peaceful silence.

Kind of a sad hermit crab

Almost as sad as Angus. Very clumsily plodding about on Pulau Hantu, this anemone's hermit crab has obviously chosen to overestimate its own prowess. Probably wasn't too wise to hang on to this shell, it's more anemone than shell, really. The good news is that he's probably going to be one of the last choices on any predator's menu.

Actually, it's kind of a sad anemone. Dragging around this pimple of a hermit crab, living out its days dreaming it would taste the sweet ocean that lies beyond this tiny lagoon, if only he'd picked a larger shell to settle on to begin with...

Public Fornication

Locked in a passionate embrace, partaking in the world's favourite pastime, this pair of fornicating horseshoe crabs were a surprising encounter at East Coast. Literally stumbled upon, the arthropod lovers were oblivious to the oohs and aahs of Ivan and I as we cheered them on in high spirits, pleased to have found them on our otherwise quiet morning of hermit crabs, moon snails, acorn worms, moon crabs and marine trash.

Angus the humungous fungus

Never did have any friends.

Little Sister's Island, revisited.

Wow, it has been 2 years since I last visited Little Sister's Island but I still remember all the funny critters we'd encountered back then. This time, we were there with "anemone people" who were studying frilly anemones -- so in between photographing critters, we looked out for these normally abundant anemones and hollahed when we saw them. We had terrible luck finding them until much later into the trip, and the tide was already threatening to claim our sorry lives by then.

It was a quiet day for marine critters that morning, in the small lagoon, I encountered this lone peacock anemone, looking very forlorn.

In the lagoons, fishies were everywhere! While ambushing a very shy reef crab, I spied this pretty pinkish scorpion fish pretending to be invisible.


This filefish lolled past as Kok Sheng called me to join him outside the lagoon.

And I encountered a number of these mystery fish:

The team trotted up to the famous giant clam that resides in one of the lagoons and had a nice time examining it before Mei Lin set up her transect.

Over at the reef near the seawall, there were many beautiful finds. Ivan bothered to double back and hunt for this featherstar just so I could take a look at it. It's gorgeous.

I encountered another feather star nearby.

It soon turned out that this stretch of shore is feather star central! Kok Sheng and Geraldine brave the very scary reef edge to eyeball the many red feather stars that gathered there, treacherously dangling off the side of the deep drop, where we all know the deadly undercurrents of Sister's islands have claimed lives.

There were also a number of black sea cucumbers.

The shore was teeming with octopussies!

Sadly, the only nudibranch we encountered was this polkadotted Jorunna nudibranch that Kok Sheng found. We all quietly complained that we needed Chay Hoon with us.

Kok Sheng found this huge arabian cowrie! My first time seeing it in real life. What a kick I got from observing it.

Over on the reef, I spotted a number of these wandering cowries too.


Stepping with much caution, negotiating the coral rubble of the reef and the edge of the lagoon, I nearly had a heart attack thinking of all the recent encounters with stinging animals on the shore that the other beach fleas had! Fortunately, it was an accident-free trip. And in between appreciating all the pretty things on the reef, we were treated to a gorgeous sunrise over Big Sister's Island. :)

Training the cat

We read somewhere that to train the cat to walk on a leash takes a number of stages:

1. Put the cat in a harness for, say, a week for it to get comfortable with wearing one
2. Attach a leash to the harness and allow the cat to walk around the house with it for a few days
3. Attach a human to the other end of the leash and allow the cat walk around the house with it for a few days
4. Finally try that outdoors

Dirty is at stage 1 now. I feel slightly bad for her to have the extra thing on her 24hours a day, but it doesn't seem to bother her very much now. She slunk a lot at first though, it was hilarious stuff. I think a bit of outdoors would make her less grumpy, don't you think? Can't wait for cat walks. Just the thought of it cracks me up!

Slugging at St John's

I love pre-dawn trips and the sun rise is one of the many reasons why.

This morning we visited St John's island again and this time, I wanted to explore more of the reef since the last visit ended with rain. This time I managed to cover the reef closest to the jetty but wtf my camera battery dies just as I reached the end.

It was a sluggy morning! Nudibranchs were all out and about.

Chay Hoon's bionic eyes led to many micro-finds, especially tiny tiny slugs. Those I don't even bother with, and leave it to the people with the macro lenses to tackle. Here, she spotted a nudibranch that was grazing on sea grapes!

I saw 2 of these large nudibranchs beached and looking very sad. James helped rescue them.

Back in water, they looked relaxed and much more beautiful. Look at those gills!


More nudis! They are so gorgeous.

A nice fat polka-dotted nudibranch.

James spotted these tiny nuzzling pyjama-striped nudibranchs.

There were also a number of these flat worms.

A scorpionfish? It hid in very murky water so we couldn't get a decent picture of it.

Fan worms were also quite common here.

Another flat worm.

There were many other feisty creatures! This shy giant reef worm barely let me focus on him before he retreated speedily with a mouthful of sargassum!

There were also many black-lipped conches on this shore.

Octopussies!


This is the strange crab I was talking about. I don't know if it was a moult since I didn't poke it.

I saw so many of these "condylactus not"s!! I love these guys. They are so elusive and shy.



There were also many other interesting anemones!

The variation of frilly anemones is quite amazing.





And then the camera died. I'm sure the others in the team would have lots more to share about this trip!

Pasir Ris is sinking (ok not really)

We went from fresh and clean to really muddy in a matter of minutes during our pre-dawn foray onto the Pasir Ris mud flat yesterday. We should have known really, but well. Sometimes we never learn. Soon after we ventured out and started sinking into the mud, James decided he had to hide his equipment in his waterproof bag before attempting to crawl out.


After I sank something like 10 times, my pants were suitably weighed down by mud up to my thighs. (This brings me back to field trip days down at Chek Jawa when we were still allowed onto the mudflat. Oh, sweet waist-deep mud.)

But the trip was worth it, albeit tiring. Despite the physical exertion of having to drag oneself out of mud many times, we saw many interesting animals!

This blue hermit crab was trying to move house, unfortunately the snail was still alive.

This bearded mudskipper gamely posed for pictures.

The shore was absolutely riddled with these tiny anemones.

How exciting! Kok Sheng spotted this large dog-faced watersnake.


We ambushed a few feeding tube worms. This guy had a tiny crab for a hat.

Tiny whelks carried tiny anemones on their shells.

Sand stars were also abundant here.

Lots of Haddon's carpet anemones as well.

A bitten biscuit star.

Everyone was covered in mud.

Ball sea cucumbers were everywhere!

As if by some flight of black magic, Kok Sheng managed to summon a cake sea star. I swear, I was right there.

A stranded snapping shrimp.

As we gave up on getting stuck every few steps of the way, we made our way back to the high shore. Exploring the mangrove area, we ambushed the many fumbling fiddler crabs.


Sun rise!

This fiddler crab was trying to flee as we neared, unfortunately he'd picked a burrow occupied by a rival male that very effectively blocked his way!

My exclamation of "Dead toad!" piqued Ivan's morbid senses as he bounced over saying something about good for Monday Morgue.

On the bridge at Pasir Ris park, we encountered this macaque that was fiddling and humping a pong pong fruit, obviously very used to humans taking his picture.



It was muddy but enjoyable. If only my butt didn't ache so much from crawling out of the mud so many times!

At least there were no sandflies.

Special animals all over St John's Island!

Stephen cups a fiddler crab that was running up his pants. Hilarious.

Off to St John's island! On Saturday, we headed out before sunrise and hit the rocky shore with our torchlights and cameras. Before we knew it, daylight had dawned but we'd missed the sunrise that was obscured by the cliff behind us. The rocky shore of St John's Island had many surprises, big and small. Sometimes incredibly tiny, like this teeny tiny brittle star I accidentally happened across under a rock. Its oral disk was something like, less than 0.5cm in diameter.

I caught a top shell on the move!


Woo! What have we here?

My find of the day!! This wiggly star anemone that's got pretty pink and green bands on its tentacles! There's also a stray brittle star arm in this shot. I was fortunate to get this picture because this anemone was so nervous, an attempt to advance made it promptly retract. From experience in previous anemone trips, we can wait til the cows come home but it won't come out to let you peer at it until next Christmas. Actually, we just call it a wiggly star anemone, but it's not yet been identified! We should check with Dr Daphne, anemone expert, when she visits us again this week for more anemone expeditions!

The rocky shore was teeming with these cowries too!

Here, I prodded a floral egg crab in hiding.

A few fan worms were up and about.

The shore was abundant with these magnifica carpet anemones! They are huge, but I didn't spot any anemone fishes or shrimps that day.

A super long ribbon worm greeted Ivan and I in the middle of nowhere when we were busy poking nudibranchs!

These are the mysterious orange nudibranchs in question.

Nearby, a tiny polkadotted nudibranch crawled about. It was so tiny, there were hardly any polkadots on its body! Aw, cute.


Aiyoh, before we knew it, a storm was headed our way! Ominous clouds formed above and sheets of rain could be seen in the distance, pelting down on the islands nearby.

There's sisters' islands in the background, under looming storm clouds, while the team was oblivious, engrossed in taking pictures of a phyllid nudibranch!

This nudibranch.

We fled to shelter as the rain started to fall. When it slowed to a drizzle, we headed back out, this time to the sandy lagoon. Here, I saw this strange moon snail with dark markings. Nobody knows what it is.

These nerites have colonised a dead oyster.

We were very enamoured with this conch which I started calling a "special gong gong" because it looks like a gong gong... but special. The markings on the shell and the wavy lip makes it very mesmerising.

Kok Sheng drew my attention to the patterned siphon. Very cute. I really like how innocent gong gong eyes are. Adorable.

Here's a stranded fiddler that Stephen fingered. So cute!


Have you cupped your crab today?

James has some amazing pictures of his finds on this trip!

On the ride back, loony boys obviously got a bad case of stupox as they... tried to slow the boat down by creating drag with their ponchos. No, not really. Actually Kok Sheng came up with this really innovative way of drying his poncho on the way back to mainland, so that it's dry by the time we dock, AND he doesn't have to mess up his home hanging it out to dry! Amazing! Ivan of course, joins in.

It was unfortunate that our trip was interuppted by rain, I would have loved to see more of the rocky shore! There's always interesting critters to observe.

Rock and reflexology on Lazarus Island

As the rest of the team explored the natural beaches of Lazarus, I trekked through the coastal forest to the rocky shore facing St John's island to check it out while the low tide was still good. This shore is vastly different from the reclaimed bay I'd just come from! Climbing down the seawall, the soft mushy part of the shore had little fiddler crabs scurrying about, being busy intimidating each other with their Big Useless Claw.


Braving the rather precarious rocky rubble of this shore, I was so lucky to spot this giant reef worm emerging from its burrow. Ugly!!


The iridescent body is rather captivating though, I must admit. These worms are very shy even though they look very scary, and feed mostly on algae tufts.


All over the shore, corals were thriving. I didn't get a picture of the large mats of leathery soft coral though, meh.






Frilly phymanthus anemones were also in abundance. This was like, Phymanthus Central.


These tiny colonial button anemones were also common.


Up on the high shore, pooping Onch slugs were everywhere.


There is this small fishery just off the rocky shore. Behind you can see the causeway with many people also fishing.


Goodness, by now we'd been walking about for almost 4 hours in the hot sun! Exhausted, Ria slacks off on the high shore on a rock obviously made for sitting upon, duh.

Thoroughly shagged out, we trudged back to the seawall through the last stretch of rocky shore which is really like, very hard core foot reflexology. It was bad, it slowed Ivan down so much that he nearly missed the boat back!! Haha.. We all got sore, painful feet, but it was worth it!

Life in a man-made bay on Lazarus Island

Last Sunday we headed out just before sunrise towards our Southern Islands and were greeted with the fat, red sun, peeking over the horizon as we approached Lazarus Island. What a lovely view!

Lazarus Island is part of the cluster of Southern Islands including Sisters' and St John's, and is now linked to the latter by a causeway. Once considered for development into a luxury resort cluster, Lazarus and the other Southern Islands have since been spared from certain concretisation as plans seem to be on hold.

As we clambered onto the island over the slippery algae-covered pontoon, we were warmly welcomed by this sign, erected all over the quiet island, warning leisure-seekers of its ulu-ness. Yup, no toilets or concrete paths, that's exactly my kind of stuff!

Just next to the jetty was this abandoned pile of very new-looking fishing net. :/


We made our way to the man-made lagoon Seringat-Kias, a sandy bay which at first sight, seems devoid of life.


Some rich kids pulled up in a boat and set up shop with their dogs for a relaxing morning of suntanning.


The happy doggies were very adorable. The terriers even had life-jackets.


There was some marine trash in this bay and it was both amusing and ridiculous, they kind of trash I encountered, like these goggles,


Sunglasses,


...a shoe.


...and a bicycle pedal!


But this seemingly clinical beach was full of life if you knew where to look! All over the bay were whelks, hermit crabs and tiny dubious nerites. I was fascinated with the variety of colours and patterns they sported.




They are very small too, something like about 0.5cm.


There were many tiny worms in the sand too.


Common sea stars were also in abundance.


As were the fish!


Here's a pretty flathead trying to be invisible. I like flatheads, I think they are one of the cutest fish.


A very cute silver whiting also trying to be invisible.


Near the sea wall, loads of oysters were growing. Here, an orange fan worm attached to a mound of oysters displayed its tentacles, filtering food particles from the water.


In the middle of nowhere was this seemingly stranded ghost crab. I checked and it was alive, but seemed a bit lost. These crabs are usually nocturnal and would bury themselves or scurry away at danger. Perhaps this one is sick or dying.


In the muddy (and very sinkable area) of the bay were lots of sea grasses, and these gum-drop ascidians grew in abundance.


Scattered along the bay, I spotted 4 of these banded peachia anemones.


Out and about in broad daylight were also these moon snails.


There were also these pink moon snails on the move.


Plenty of sand dollars were out and about.


And this sea cucumber was spotted in the muddy sea grass area near the seawall too. Ria says she's only seen this in Changi. So yay~ for another record.


There was also in the middle of nowhere, a clump of zebra coral!


This reclaimed bay seems to be full of life inspite of its clinical appearance! Look out for part 2 of the exploration of Lazarus as we check out the rocky shore on the other side of the island proper.

Wet on Jong

Wednesday morning, we headed out just before sunrise to catch Pulau Jong at low tide. Jong is a tiny tiny outcrop of an island situated somewhere between Semakau and Bukom. It is so small, you only see a tuft of green foliage exposed in the middle of nowhere, with swooping sea eagles gracefully circling the island. But at low tide, a reef flat is exposed, and we attempted our amphibious landing at this time, just when day broke.

As we fumbled across the intertidal towards the cliff, we noticed a scary storm in the distance. Sheets of rain partially cloaked the brown haze in the distance.

Knowing the storm might just be making its way over to where we were, we hurriedly carried on. Here you can see Sebarok in the distance, from which an odour of petroleum extruded. Meh.


The reef is abundant with soft corals and funny little hairy crabs. Sadly, this cute hiding red eye reef crab was the only crab I got a picture of.

Nearby, a large flatworm went about its business.

This strange tiny eel (?) caught my eye. It was very busy poking around the sand, rather violently tearing at the undersides of rocks.


As usual, gobies were in abundance. I find them very adorable.

A marine spider tried to run away from me! Understandble, of course.



Another flatworm -- these guys were fairly common on Jong!

How many gobies are there in this picture?

Alas, less than an hour from landing and the stupid storm reached us. Cold, windy, wet, miserable. We mucked around the high shore while the rain pelted down, waiting for some reprieve (that did not come). The tide was about to turn so we decided to just call for our ride and FLEE!

Back on the boat, everyone looked suitably ridiculous. Soggy, cold, and flourescent.

Ivan picked something off his bootie that turned out to be a tiny hitchhiking spider crab!


Well. Shivering and damp, we bade farewell to Jong. That's our little dinghy the White Bunny. Aww.

Back at the marina, we eyeballed the ostentatious over-consumption of the privileged class.

...that are very creative at naming their rides.

This was my favourite: the Sea Duction. *chortle*

That's our little boat...

... next to the huge thing called the White Rabbit.

Noordin mangroves and the elusive Sea Durian

This is not my first time seeing the Sea Durian. My first time was when I saw one washed ashore at Changi Beach -- the first specimen I've seen that was intact and covered in kelp! I must write about that some day. Here's a close-up:

I joined Ria and team up at the northern shore of Ubin, Noordin Beach, to explore the mangroves there at low tide yesterday. The sun was out, it was blazing hot, and the soft squishy animals were hiding. Like these nerite snails I peeked at in a deep rock crevice.


We headed into the mangrove forests, and while clueless non-plant person (me) wandered about enjoying the foliage, mud lobster mounds, scurrying mudskippers and crabs, and sporadic spider-web-in-face experience, the rest went nuts over the mangrove trees that thrived in the cool calm of the Noordin mangroves.


The mangrove forest is quiet and peaceful, lovely rays of light break the shade occasionally, putting some part of nature in the literal spotlight. The forest noise of cicadas, birds and buzzing wasps was punctuated with the occassional crack of plastic bottle marine trash that somebody had to step onto while trudging through the mud. I admired the pretty mangrove plants, my favourite is surely the sea hibiscus.


The brugiera flowers and propagules drew a lot of attention from Ria and Marcus and they got all excited. Read Ria's (more informative than this) post on the fascinating mangrove plants she saw that day.


And I met my namesake in there too:


I took a while admiring these squabbling velvet ants.


Later when we left the mangroves, we got plenty engrossed in trying to photograph these coy fiddler crabs that live right on the shore.



The females were a lot less chicken and let me thrust the lens really close.


I got a serious butt cramp doing all that squatting!! I did more squatting trying to get good pictures of these sand wasps that were all over the periphery of the mangrove forest. Buzzing loudly, occassionally banging heads and busy digging burrows, these pretty blue-striped wasps were completely oblivious to me.


I was very enamoured with these wasps. It could be the hypnotic way their abdomens contract and expand rabidly when they are at rest, as if they were breathing with lungs, or the comical way they dug sand out of their burrows, vigilantly lifting larger objects and transferring them out, dragging the occassional leaf with considerable effort.


Or the way they pose handsomely for pictures!

These digging wasps are predatory, mostly preying on flies, killing them and then storing them in their burrows. The flies are food stores for their developing larvae young that live in the burrows until they mature. Amazing.

Noordin may be cursed with an unsightly shore, what with the ugly fencing just off the coast and shallow beach soggy with a somewhat marine mud substrate that lies just below the top layer of sand, but she boasts a healthy mangrove and thriving shore life. The lack of people there also means its more peaceful to explore. :D

All crabbed out at Tanah Merah

Oh, clever puns elude me. This morning I joined Ria and friends for a trip to Tanah Merah -- man, I had no idea there was anything there! At 4AM, it was a generous low tide that exposed an expansive intertidal flat bordered by sea wall and rocky substrate.

It was freaking ghost crab central! There were just so many of them scurrying about. And Duck found great amusement in poking them every time one ran across our tracks.





Eye-stalks raised, they look rather hilarious actually.

I did see some fishies, very cute.








This buried guy was rather big, about 6 or 7 inches long. I'm not sure what he is. Could be a dragonet?


Ivan spotted this huge flatworm floundering about among the rocks -- this was about 7 inches long!


Then it turned upside down and swam away, exposing the fragile pink underside!


A feeding gong-gong, nose extended!

There were also many many shrimp. I thought this pic of a buried shrimp is hilarious. Hello, no not quite invisible, you.

A very active shrimp busy digging out his burrow.


This desis spider was skidding about on the surface of the water, in the middle of nowhere!

Duck spotted this tiny nudibranch. Soooo cute.

A bit past 6AM, the tide started coming in. I took a break and admired the haunting full moon. The view at Tanah Merah is lovely.

...and when we got back to our cars we found parking tickets. Boohoo... who the hell checks at 4AM, seriously?