Among the reefiest natural shores near the mainland is Sentosa Serapong. This shore lies opposite the Tanjung Pagar container terminal and just off Serapong Golf Club. With the kind permission and support of Sentosa and the Golf Club, we survey this shore once a year.
We were worried about what we might see following mass coral bleaching on all our reefs last year. Sadly, we estimate about 50% to 80% of the hard corals had died. But the leathery soft corals looked alright.
We last surveyed the shore in
May 2016, before mass coral bleaching peaked in Singapore. So we did not see this reef bleaching at the time.
The
plate corals seemed to have survived well. Most were still large and were not bleaching. I saw many small new colonies growing.
There are large colonies of hard corals just outside the seawall.
About 50% of the
Anemone corals had died. And some had very pale polyps.
About 90% of the
Cauliflower corals had died. They dominated the reef flat when we last surveyed in
May 2016 and were not bleaching at that time.
Here's a selection of Cauliflower corals seen in various stages of healthy, half dead to recently dead.
I saw several large colonies of
Crinkled sandpaper corals that were alright.
There are still some large and colourful healthy corals on the shore. Including two
Anchor corals which bleached badly last year. Some large colonies of
Galaxy coral, and two small
Brain coral colonies. There were still many
Red feather stars on some of the corals near the jetty.
I saw a few small
Acropora corals in various stages of healthy to pale to dead. I saw a few
Branching montipora corals that looked alright. I did not see any mushroom corals.
About half of the
Pore corals I saw were pale or had pale patches.
I saw a few
Merulinid corals that were ok. But most of them had dead patches and some were pale or had bleaching portions.
Many of the medium-sized Merulinid corals had large dead portions.
Here's a video clip of the coral landscape today.
The Leathery soft corals and seagrasses seemed alright.
Leathery soft corals of various kinds were still present and all not bleaching. There were also some
flowery soft corals but much less in number than before.
There were sprinkles of
Spoon seagrass (small leaved) here and there. A small patch of
Sickle seagrass near the beacon. And a few clumps of
Tape seagrass with long leaf blades. There was no bloom of seaweeds on the shore.
There were still many
Magnificent anemones, but I couldn't find
Clown anemonefishes in them. Fortunately Shao Wei found one! It was very shy. I also saw one Giant carpet anemone.
I saw other signs of new life such as egg capsules of snails,
egg ribbons of slugs and egg strings of snails.
We ended the survey at the Jetty and are glad to see a variety of colourful marine life there. Including large barrel sponges, sea fans and various sponges.
A closer look at the marine life under the old jetty.
Thanks to Josephine and Shao Wei from Sentosa Development Corp and Sheila of Serapong Golf Course for arranging the survey for all these years.
Here they are with the super large leathery soft coral that is still there. I'm sure this reef will pull through and return to its former glory!
Photos by others on this trip
