The smaller of the two Sisters, this compact island has a densely overgrown but narrow reef. We've not visited Little Sisters Island since Dec 07, so we're excited to see how she might be doing.
And she seems to be doing well. On some parts of the shore, every inch of rubble is coated with living things: hard corals, sponges, encrusting seaweed and lots of other stuff I have no idea what they are.
Even big corals are squished up next to one another.
The water quickly cleared up as the tide fell, leaving a lagoon of calm clear water full of fishes. It was a natural aquarium!I saw many of these damselfishes that looked very similar.
This one is probably the Bengal sergeant (Abudefduf bengalensis).
How about this one?
And this one? It was much larger. Hmmm...Pre-dawn trips are fun because many of the hard corals extend their tentacles at night.
They look very different with their tentacles sticking out.
And very beautiful too!
Unfortunately, many hard corals are identified by details of their skeleton. So it's difficult to identify corals from photos of with expanded polyps.Besides hard corals, there were also lots of leathery soft corals.
These are also colonial animals, with many tiny polyps living together in a shared leathery tissue. They are identified by the different kinds of polyps and polyp arrangements.
So although the colony may look similar at first glance, a closer look will show they are different.
These three leathery soft corals with 'fingers' are probably all different kinds.
The soft coral that looks like an omelette has taller polyps.
And on one of the soft corals, I notice something that looks like a tiny sea anemone. Wow!There were bigger anemones too, like the Giant carpet anemones (Stichodactyla gigantea). Marcus found one with a clown anemonefish. But I had no luck.
We all saw this special anemone though.
It's what I call the Snaky sea anemone (Macrodactyla doreensis). It has long snaky tentacles and the body column has bumps. I remember someone once remarked that the tangle of fat tentacles reminded him of a bowl of udon! These sea anemones are not very commonly encountered, so it was nice to see one.Today, the Sargassum seaweed (Sargassum sp.) was in full bloom. The long 'leafy' strands covered everything and made it difficult to look around.
So I decided to look AT the seaweed instead. Of course lots of animals were hiding among the fronds, including this rather well camouflaged octopus! There were also lots of fishes, crabs and other animals among the seaweed, which were difficult to photograph in the 'forest' of weeds.
But these little snails (probably Family Columbellidae) were easy to shoot. There were lots of them. But some of the shells on the seaweed were occupied by little hermit crabs instead of snails!
Besides the usual 'leafy' kind of Sargassum, there is also another kind of seaweed that belongs in the same family. This brown seaweed has triangular, pyramidal blades that often grows in a kind of short column. I don't see it very often as it's mainly found on hard surfaces facing strong waves. It's called Turbinaria sp. which unfortunately, is also the name of a hard coral.We check out the Giant clam (Tridacna squamosa) on the island and were glad to see that it's still there!
Has it grown? I'm not sure. But this is what it looked like in Dec 07 when we last saw it.
On the high shore, there were lots of Land hermit crabs (Coenobita cavipes). I saw at least five of them. They seem to be undisturbed by the hordes of fiercely biting red ants that were foraging there too.
This is good to know. I remember reading about how on Christmas Island ants were killing the land crabs.The best part of a predawn trip is of course ... dawn!
And what a stunning sunrise it was today! 
A glorious blue sky painted pink by the first rays of sun with the city skyline in the distance, and reefs all around. What a great way to end this year's series of predawn low tide trips.
I also quickly scurried over to the other side of the island, to take the sun rising over the horizon behind St. John's Island, and Big Sister island opposite.
The water visibility was excellent today! Here's a view facing Big Sisters.
And towards the city.The water was so clear that just before we left, Ivan noticed a gianormous red feather star. Of course "kamikaze" YC slid right down the seawall to take a photo of it.
It was enormous. He's uploaded more photos of this trip and other trips to our shores on his facebook.
The sky was so marvellous we just couldn't stop taking photos and videos even along the way home.
Here's the huge sky over our main business district, with Sentosa to the left, and the blue blue waters around. This photo reminds me of just how small we are and how we are affected by nature all around us. In the city, we forget. Because we can't see the sky or touch the sea.
