Now a Marine Park, Big Sisters Island lies just 15 minutes from the main business district on the mainland, all aglow during our predawn trip.
Today I saw lots of fishes, but I sense there are far fewer corals than on our previous surveys. My recent visits to Big Sisters Island were mostly related to guiding or training guides. This is the first time since
July 2013 that our team does our usual survey of the island.
Everyone's favourite fish is the 'Nemo' or
False clown anemonefish. I was glad to see some in several
Giant carpet anemones. While these fishes are easy to spot during daytime trips, most reef fishes are shy. A night trip allows us to encounter and more easily photograph a wider variety.
A
Scissortail sergeant which so far I only commonly see on Big Sisters Island.
This looks like a
Bengal sergeant.
This
Bengal sergeant appears to be injured. There were also many small
halfbeaks and abundant
Tropical silversides.
An
Orbicular cardinalfish which I have commonly seen only at Big Sisters Island and on Pulau Hantu.
A
Spangled emperor. Indeed, many of our reef fishes are glittery and gleam with a rainbow sheen.
Some fishes are very well camouflaged like this
Frill-fin goby.
A pair of
Seagrass filefishes which blend superbly with their surroundings.
I also saw many fishes that I am not familiar with. Please leave a comment if you can identify them.
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| Fish A: Unidentified. |
 |
| Fish B: Unidentified |
 |
| Fish C: Unidentified |
I saw many of this beautiful greenish fish.
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| Fish D: Unidentified. |
Alas, we are sad that we did not come across any seahorses. Although Kok Sheng saw a baby shark.
Some interesting sightings include this this large
Olive snail. The first time I've seen it outside of Cyrene Reef!
This is the only nudibranch I saw, some kind of
Gymnodoris. We looked but couldn't find any living Giant clams on the intertidal today. I saw a few
Spotted black flatworms.
In the crevices of the seawall, I saw a large
Diadema sea urchin as well as a few tiny ones. There were also many
Long black sea cucumbers and a few
Big synaptid sea cucumbers.
Busy at night among the coral rubble were many small
Reef octopuses which are so well camouflaged that I only spot them when they move.
The
Land hermit crabs are more active at night. On the high tide line I saw many, including this cluster. I thought they were
about to exchange shells, but it turned out they were quarreling over food.
We are surprised to see many
Common sea stars in the big lagoon. Many of them were paired up. Perhaps this is because the big lagoon has become much sandier?
There are still some large healthy corals on the reef flats. But I sense we saw fewer colonies compared to our trips in
May 2013 and
July 2013. The shore was much quieter than even my brief walk through in
Apr 2014 when I was still recovering from a broken foot and didn't cover much ground.
As usual, I check for coral bleaching. While I didn't come across any outright bleaching corals, many colonies were half dead.
What is coral bleaching and why this is of concern on the Bleach Watch Singapore blog. Fortunately, the
latest Bleaching Alert Areas from the NOAA website shows that Singapore now falls outside the 'Watch' status. Let's hope our corals have passed the danger period for the year.
As usual, the most abundant coral were boulder-shaped
Favid corals. Most were alright although many had small pale or bleaching portions.
There were many
Boulder pore corals and most were alright. Only a few were pale or had greyish dead portions.
The large colony of
Anemone coral in the middle of the lagoon is still there. This and the few other Anemone corals I saw were not bleaching.
I saw two small colonies of
Acropora coral. There were also some branching
Montipora corals, they were not bleaching.
I only saw one colony of
Cauliflower coral with the top portion dead. I saw several
Crinkled sandpaper corals and they were alright.
I saw a few
Brain corals and aside from slightly yellowish portions, most of them seemed alright, although their top parts were dead.
I saw a few
Flowery disk corals and they were all pale or yellowish. But none were outright bleaching.
I saw a few colonies of
Carnation coral,
Ridged plate coral and
Galaxy coral. The
Anchor coral colony is half dead although there were living healthy portions. I also saw a small half dead
Lettuce coral. Kok Sheng saw a few
Circular mushroom corals.
I saw a variety of
Leathery soft corals and they were all not bleaching. I didn't see any
flowery soft corals. I saw a few
Frilly sea anemones and many
Giant carpet anemones, they were not bleaching.
In the morning, we saw prints of a baby
Long-tailed macaque. There are many wild monkeys on this island and they can be quite aggressive to humans who are alone. Pei Yan got bullied by some in the morning but she knew how to take care of herself.
Seen today at the Big Sisters Islands Jetty, some sensible tips on courtesy in our Marine Park to protect our marine life and the ambience so everyone can enjoy the Park. I'm glad to see that finally, fishing and poaching is clearly disallowed. Today, we didn't come across any nets or traps. In
Oct 2011, we came across two nets laid on the reefs which caused much damage.
More about the Sisters Islands Marine Park on the
blog and
facebook page.
Posts by others on this trip
