There is a sea fan garden at Changi that is only exposed at the very lowest tides. Which tend to happen at ungodly hours. The reefiest parts of the shore were furthest away from human reach. Read more about how
coastal boardwalks can do more harm than good.
This shore was probably affected by the by the
300-tonne oil spill in the East Johor Strait in January. This is my first time at this shore since the oil spill.
There are still stunningly beautiful sea fans and sponges here. Which reminds me of Beting Bronok, a dying reef off Pulau Tekong.
The sea fans were mostly
Candelabra sea fans and
Gnarled sea fans. I saw a few
Skinny sea fans and some Yellow sea fans. But there were fewer sea fans compared to my last survey here in
Aug 2016.
There were still many small sea fans all along the shore. Compared to my last survey here in
Aug 2016, there are much fewer sponges today. In particular, there were few
Purple branching sponges which usually dominate this shore.
The most abundant sponge is
Melted Chocolate sponge which covers the rocks at the low water mark.
Other sponges were less abundant. Although I still saw several different kinds, most only one or a few clumps.
There were many patches of healthy looking brown
Zebra coral, and some green
Neat hexa corals. I only saw one small rather sickly looking
Pink flowery soft coral.
Changi is a great place to spot weird nudibranchs. Not all of them are pretty. I saw this small
Fugly nudibranch. Which truly, only a mother could love.
There were many
Crown sea stars on the rocks, but I didn't see any other kinds of sea stars. There were a few brittle stars. The field of
Button zoanthids has been reduced but is still there. I saw one
Cowrie snail, a few small clumps of
Yellow clustered bead ascidians and one
Blue-dotted flatworm.
So nice to see a
Slender seagrass octopus. I haven't seen one for a long time.
My first time seeing the
Head-stripe goby on Changi. I usually see these on our Southern reefs.
I saw two
cerianthids. One of them had lots of
Phoronid worms, animals which live together with cerianthids.
The soft silty ground is happy home for many sea pens of all kinds. I saw many
Flowery sea pens, some
Sea pencils, a few
Slender sea pens and two
Spiky sea pens. Many more kinds and numbers of sea pens than on my last survey here in
Aug 2016.
I saw some scarily large clumps of
Stinging hydroids. One had a cluster of
squid eggs attached to it.
There were a lot of
Swimming crabs of various kinds on the shore. As well as many
Stone crabs. On higher ground, lots of
Purple climber crabs.
I saw an enormous
Garlic bread sea cucumber. There were also many buried
Ball sea cucumbers. I saw a few
Orange sea cucumbers. Where the Melted Chocolate sponge was submerged, there were tangles of small
Sponge synaptid sea cucumbers.
On the pilings and walls, there was a layer of
Little black mussels. Among them, tiny young
Green mussels.
Lined bead anemones were abundant. On the lower areas, there were many
Banded bead anemones. I didn't see any other kinds of anemones.
I saw a few patches of sparse
Hairy spoon seagrass. I've been seeing this here since
Jun 2012.
There are still
Spoon seagrasses at the mouth of the stream near Loyang. But rather sparse.
Mangrove trees are starting to settle on the artificial seawall in one part of the shore. There was a large
Perepat, unfortunately bald at the top part. Also many
Api-api putih saplings.
This shore is heavily impacted by fishing pressure. And we signs of this on every trip. This morning, I saw a very long fish trap, several smaller fish traps and many abandoned lines and nets.
Ian Siah surveyed
Changi Loyang on 30 Apr and it looked fine.
Loh Kok Sheng also surveyed
Changi Loyang on 30 Apr. See also
his blog post on the trip.
Today,
Chay Hoon surveyed another part of Changi too
Posts about the Jan 2017 Johor Strait oil spill
Survey on 10 Feb, one month after the oil spill
Other surveys and news posts
