It's Day Two of the Expedition and there's more awesome finds. Like this tiny
frogfish!
I had a great time with another batch of volunteers are back on the mudflats at Pulau Ubin, Outward Bound Singapore!
They were a fun and enthusiastic bunch from APB (
Asia Pacific Breweries) who are sponsoring the Survey and Expedition. It was nice to meet them again and earlier, I had been on
a trip Big Sisters Island with them. We did a little patch of flats near the OBS jetty reminds me of Chek Jawa! There's some seagrasses, and lots of soft squishy mud. On the rocks, lots of colourful sponges!
The team found lots of sea urchins, sea pens, sea cucumbers,
Bill the unknown anemone, little snails, clams, lots of worms including what looks like a
spaghetti worm. I found a strange
synaptid sea cucumber buried in the mud! And we later came across a
Biscuit sea star near the jetty.
Treat of the day! At the end of the trip, the APB team shared lots of ice-cold Crystal Beer which was well appreciated by everyone! Awesome!
When we arrived, we notice
the NUS vessel Galaxea is at the jetty. This means the Dredging Team has done their run and everyone must be busy sorting out their finds!
Here's some of their amazing finds. A live
Rare spined murex, lots and lots of brittlestars, and Nick has found ctenaphores (the blob in the spoon).
Prof Peter as usual, educates everyone on the specimens. He can enthrall us even with a humble oyster.
He pointed out this baby
Mantis shrimp! My bad photo of it here. I'm sure Rene will share a better one soon.
I made a lame joke that in the Expedition, we don't have running water. We have walking water! Here's a team bringing back seawater for processing the specimens.
All too soon, it's time to go home again. Thanks once again to the sporting APB team for helping out at the survey and for the excellent beer!
Tomorrow, I'll be staying overnight, so the next blog update will be on Friday. There's so much more to learn about our shores!
More photos and stories on the
Mega Marine Survey blog!
