And after that, we had a quick look at some of the marine life growing on their pontoons. Amazing stuff!The pink sea fan was about 30cm wide. And there were many of them too. I only had lame Sneaky Cam with me so the photos are quite poor. Here's another sea fan! Next to it (lower edge of photo) looks like some worm snails (Family Vermetidae).
There were also lots of fluffy Flowery pink soft corals (Family Nephtheidea). I'm sure there are commensals in there like brittle stars and false cowries. Sneaky Cam too lame to pick them up.
Also lots of other unidentified critters. Looks like the Knobbly sea fan, and some hydroids?
Here where it's darker, there was also a bunch of Cave corals (Tubastrea sp.)!
On the side facing the sunlight were lots of brown flowery soft corals. Again, probably full of other critters too fast or too tiny for Sneaky Cam. Swimming about in the water, Debby spotted a juvenile Batfish (Platax sp.). We also saw a Beautiful fireworm (Chloeia sp.), a little sea cucumber, crabs and shrimps, and assorted other little fishes.
After the very brief peek at the sides of the pontoon, we had a quick look as some fabulous photos already taken by Roy. It included False clown anemonefishes (Amphiprion ocellaris), a Kite butterflyfish (Parachaetodon ocellatus), Razorfish (Family Centriscidae) in a Long-spined black sea urchin (Diadema sp.) and lots of other amazing marine life!The Marina guys also shared that they had seen seahorses, cuttlefishes and even baby sea turtles. Wow!
It was really nice to chat with the guys. They clearly love the sea very much.
The plan is for the Hantu Bloggers to collaborate on documenting this amazing marine life and for the Marina to put up signages about our marine life and what we can do to preserve them.
Debby is going out of town for a few weeks. We look forward to following up on this when she's back. This is really exciting!
Thanks to Alex of Summit Marine for introducing us to the Marina. Alex is truly a supporter of marine conservation. Not only taking us to weird reefs at odd hours, but also thinking of how to bring us together with like-minded people. Thanks Alex!
Debby shares more about the evening and about the Marina on the Hantu Blog.
