Reefy seawalls at East Coast Park

We return to the very long seawall at East Coast Park which is encrusted with corals. Seagrasses have also settled in the lagoon behind the seawall.

Alas, we are unable to survey the larger area across the canal as "No Trespassing" signs have been set up there. But we saw living corals and seagrasses in the smaller area and even in the canal.


Today, the tide is not very low, so we only got glimpses of corals growing in lower parts of the seawall.

Here's some of the corals I saw. I didn't see much as I did not dare walk on the slippery rocks with splashing waves.

Here's a video clip of the seawall and some of the corals I saw.

This is what we saw on our last survey in Nov 2016. Kok Sheng the Human Climbing Crab went out on the narrow wall and shares this photo of the corals encrusting the wall.

While Heng Pei Yan, the Drone Commander, flew the Drone for these awesome aerials of the coral reef.



Our last trip here was in May 2016 before the widespread onset of mass coral bleaching. But Arjun Sai Krishnan reported lots of bleaching here when he surveyed it in July 2016. So it's good to see that lots of corals made it through the mass coral bleaching event.

Today, the most amazing find were about 20 large chitons (about 10cm), spotted by Ywee Chieh. Are they Acanthopleura gemmata? Which is listed as 'Endangered' in the Singapore Red Data Book.

The seawall also had lots of encrusting critters like oysters and barnacles, as well as tiny snails, slugs and crabs. I saw a small cluster of Button zoanthids and a stranded Thorny sea cucumber. I didn't see any anemones at the sea wall, although at the sandier area, I saw two Haddon's carpet anemones.

The patch of Serrated ribbon seagrass near the seawall is still there. There were also sprinkles of Spoon seagrass (small leaf blades), a clump of Noodle seagrass, and two clumps of Tape seagrass with long leaf blades (about 50cm).

There were seagrasses in the canal too, near the mouth at the sea. In the seagrass, there were Orange stripped hermit crabs, Gold-spotted mudskipper and Solitary tubeworms. I even saw some sand collars - egg capsules of Moon snails! It seems the mouth of the canal has become a sandy-seagrassy shore.

Here's a video clip of some of the seagrasses I saw.

This area has many boats stored on the high shore. Liz removed some entangled fishing lines, a small portion of a fish net, and a crab trap.

There were "No Trespassing" signs all along the opposite side of the canal, and several solar-powered cameras on the seawall and shoreline. I hope this means this shore will be safe from people.

Posts by others on this trip

• Liz Lim on facebook.

Others on this trip: Ywee Chieh