I was there for a whole-day event with the National Youth Council, so I came a little earlier to take a quick peek over the edge of the pontoons. They are festooned with all kinds of marinelife!
Lots of flowery soft corals (Family Nephtheidea) in all kinds of shapes and colours.
Nestled among them are the flower-like feeding tentacles of sea cucumbers.
Here's a closer look at one.
Other feathery animals are fan worms (Family Sabellidae). Here's an orange one.
And a banded brown one.
There are also sponges. This pink sponge was draped with brittle stars.
There were lots of Chequered cardinalfishes (Apogon margaritaphorus). But they were very hard to take with my little sneaky camera (whose functions I have yet to master. Sigh, I sure miss the Giant Camera who does all the thinking for me and I only have to press the button to go).
There were also lots bigger fishes. Including fat Banded archerfishes (Toxotes jaculatrix).
In fact, there is an ongoing project at Raffles Marina studying these and other fishes as part of a study of artificial habitats for marine creatures.
And another project studying green mussels as a bio-remediation experiment to improve water quality.
A pity I couldn't really explore the pontoons for long. But it's nice to know that some marinas are doing their part for marine conservation in Singapore.
