Sea fan garden at Changi

This delicate garden of sea fans is exposed only at the very lowest tides. Which tend to happen at ungodly hours. The reefiest parts of the shore were furthest away from human reach.

Today, the sea fans were still there, although those near the boardwalk were dead. While there were lush growths of seagrasses, sponges don't seem to be doing very well. There continues to be abandoned traps and nets on the shore.

Near and under the boardwalk, most of the sea fans were dead.

Further away from the boardwalk, healthy looking sea fans were more abundant.

The sea fans were mostly Candelabra sea fans and Gnarled sea fans. I saw a few Skinny sea fans and some Yellow sea fans. But there were fewer sea fans compared to my last survey here in May 2017, which in turn was already less than what I saw in Aug 2016.

I sense there were a little more sponges today than on my last survey in May 2017, after this shore was probably impacted by the 300-tonne oil spill in the East Johor Strait in Jan 2017. Melted chocolate sponge was the most abundant. But there were many other small clumps of different sponges on the rocks and jetty legs.

Sponges and other animals encrust the dark areas under the jetty.

Sponges means nudibranchs! This is one of the places were we often come across this pretty nudibranch.

There were many patches of healthy looking brown Zebra coral, and some green Neat hexa corals. And there were small clumps of Candy hydroids here and there. Feeding on all the sponges and other encrusting animals were nudibranchs and flatworms, while synaptid sea cucumbers nestled among them. I did not come across any Pink flowery soft coral. The field of Button zoanthids has been reduced to a few small clumps. I only saw a few buried Ball sea cucumbers and no other kinds of sea cucumbers.

The shore is rocky is some parts and very much alive. Most of the marine life is found under the rocks and stones. After having a peek, we always carefully put the rocks back the way we found them.

There are some patches of soft silty mud on the shore. Here, there were a variety of sea pens: I saw many Flowery sea pens, some Sea pencils, a few Slender sea pens. And many large cerianthids.

There are sparse patches of Hairy spoon seagrass in many parts of the shore along the low water mark. I've been seeing this here since Jun 2012.

There were also large patches of lush Spoon seagrass, the first time I've seen them here.

The seagrasses at Loyang appeared more lush than what I saw in May 2017.

Mangroves continue to be settling on the high shore.

There was Perepat, Api-api putih, Api-api bulu, Jeruju, Bakau putih.

Thanks to Jonathan and Nicholas for helping to remove this net that we found under the jetty.

But we couldn't remove some of the larger traps. Such as this very long boxy trap which I first saw in May 2017. It is now flattened and did not have any trapped animals. Except the shell of a horseshoe crab. There was also a net attached to several large blue drums, and even a small boat abandoned on the shore.

Even on a Monday morning at sunrise, the boardwalk was already crowded with fishing poles, fish traps and nets.

Here's about how coastal boardwalks can do more harm than good.

In April 2018, two otters were found dead near the Changi boardwalk near Changi Sailing Club. According to media reports, one of the otters was found along the beach (left), while the other was found in a metal trap used to catch crabs and fish (right). We did not come across any such large traps today.

Let's hope this shore and all the animals that live here stay safe until we can return next year.

Photos by others on this trip

Teo Say Chong


Jonathan Tan


People who came for this survey: Lisa Lim, Teo Say Chong, Nicholas Yap


Meanwhile, Able Yeo explored another Changi shore