Located near Jurong Island and next to Pulau Bukom and the petrochemical plants there. And yet, this large submerged reef has corals and other reef life!
Today it was clear that the leathery soft corals have returned to dominate the reefs here. They were badly hit during the
mass coral bleaching in 2016. I was glad to see the field of living branching corals are still doing well too, although disappointed that the seagrasses were not doing better.
Here's a video of the highlights of my trip.
This submerged reef flat doesn't have a lot of hard corals. But there is a large field of
Branching montipora corals close to our landing point. The field looks similar to what I saw on our last survey in
Nov 2018.
There were also clumps of Branching montipora corals on other parts of the shore. I also came across a few small colonies of
Acropora coral.
It was a lovely surprise to come across some mushroom corals: A small
Tongue mushroom coral, a small
Mole mushroom coral and many tiny to small
Circular mushroom corals, some of them still stuck onto a hard surface!
There were many
Merulinid corals (previously Family Faviidae) on the shore, most were alright.
There were also a lot of
Blue corals especially near the reef edge. They were alright.
I also saw many
Boulder pore corals and
Anemone corals. Most were alright. Only a few were pale or had pale patches. I saw some
Cauliflower corals that were alright although they had large dead portions. All the
Sandpaper corals I saw were alright.
I saw many plate forming corals, mostly
Disk corals and one small
Ringed plate coral. Most were alright also some of the
Flowery disk corals were very pale. There were also some
Galaxy coral and
Pebble corals, they were alright.
There is lot of large
leathery soft corals on the shore, of many kinds. Most were alright.
I only saw one
Smooth leathery soft coral that was very white, and another with a small bleaching portion. As well as a
Pinwheel leathery soft coral with bright yellow edges.
There were many
Frilly sea anemones,
zoanthids,
Giant carpet anemones (one had a hidden anemonefish),
White tipped corallimorphs and
Broad feathery soft corals. None of us saw any giant clams. I didn't come across any
Haddon's carpet anemones.
There were many patches of seagrasses of various kinds but they were heavily covered in epiphytes. Most of the Tape seagrass I saw was cropped. I sense the seagrasses were doing better on our last survey here in
Apr 2017.
Here's the location of Terumbu Pempang Tengah. It is close to an area designated for parking of large unused construction sea vessels such as cranes, barges and huge work boats.
The
2030 Landuse Plan by the Ministry of National Development released in Jan 2013 shows plans for 'possible future reclamation' (in light blue surrounded by dotted lines) that may impact Terumbu Pempang Darat and Terumbu Pempang Tengah. More about the
possible impact of the 2030 Landuse Plan on our shores.
Let's hope these beautiful reefs will be spared this fate.
Photos by others on this trip
Photos by
Liz Lim
