30 October 2015

Living shores of Sentosa Tanjung Rimau

There is a sliver of beautiful natural shores at Sentosa Tanjung Rimau. Here, there are natural cliffs cloaked with natural coastal forests. These lead to natural rocky shores, reefs and seagrass meadows.
The team made a short trip yesterday to check it out. I was also there to prep for the Marine Park volunteer training later today.


The Tape seagrasses are nice and long and lush on the shore. Many had female or male flowers. The patch of Sickle seagrass is also doing very well, and there were many large lush patches of Spoon seagrass as well.
Here's a short video of the seagrasses and other natural shores on Sentosa Tanjung Rimau.
Lush seagrass meadows at Sentosa Tanjung Rimau
Octopuses are abundant on Sentosa Tanjung Rimau. But they only emerge after sunset and disappear at sunrise. Making them a challenge to video in the dark. Here's my amateur attempt with feeble swimming camera and little torch. They are actually quite friendly and will accommodate flash photography as long as we don't alarm them.
Reef octopus on Sentosa Tanjung Rimau
A huge flatworms is a magic carpet for a tiny fish!
Dawn flatworm (Pseudobiceros uniarborensis) and Spotted black flatworm (Acanthozoon sp.)
Fishies are everywhere but often well camouflaged. Here's my feeble attempt at videos of them in the dark. From tiny filefish, to scorpionfish and butterflyfish to larger stingray. The rest of the team also spotted a very very tiny stonefish! Watch your step!
Fishes at Sentosa Tanjung Rimau
My main purpose for this trip was to collect small samples of coastal forest plants for the Marina Park volunteer training later today. I wasn't tall enough so I'm thankful to Jonathan for getting a sample of the Raffles pitcher plants growing here. Another special for Sentosa is the huge Nyireh laut mother tree. There are only a handful of these trees in Singapore.
When we arrived, there was a small boat and several people on a raft near the blue drums. They are part of a floating 'security barrier' installed in 2012.
A closer look at the raft. Are they fixing the security barrier?
On the high shore, I saw a sprinkling of styrofoam like material on the high water line. Pei Yan saw styrofoam leaking from a broken blue drum in Aug 2013.
I didn't see any broken drums along the line of them that extend to the high shore. Are the men fixing broken drums in deeper water?
Here's a video of the blue drums and the marine life near the drums.
'Blue drums' security barrier on Sentosa's natural shores
Many large vessels pass next to this living shore.
Large cruise ship passes the living reefs of Sentosa Tanjung Rimau
My last trip here was in Aug 2015. Let's hope this shore remains safe until we get a chance to survey it again.

Photos by others on this trip