There is an underwater garden on the rockier parts of Changi. Today, there are still patches of healthy sea fans, and some areas are sponge gardens which provide food for our favourite nudibranchs. There are some corals here too and none of them were bleaching.
Seagrasses are sprinkled in many areas in this stretch of shore. Mangrove trees have settled on the artificial seawall and a figging fig tree was full of bats and birds! Unfortunately, fishing remains a constant pressure on this shore, with many abandoned nets and traps as usual.
I sense the sea fan here situation is stabilising. Today, Kok Sheng noted that there were many healthy sea fans under the boardwalk.
Elsewhere towards Loyang though, most of the sea fans I saw were covered with scum. But there were many large clean colonies in the quieter lagoon. In some places, delicate bouquets of various colourful marine life can still be seen. Things seem a little better than on my last survey in
Jun 2019 when I sense a steady decline from our surveys in
Aug 2018 and
May 2017, with the best situation seen in
Aug 2016.
Today I saw many unhealthy
Gnarled sea fans, but also saw many large healthy
Candelabra sea fans and
Skinny sea fans. Also a
Sea whip and an
Asparagus sea fan.
There were many patches of healthy looking brown
Zebra coral, and some green
Neat hexa corals. And for the first time here, I saw a
Flowery disk coral. There were also sprinkles of tiny
Cave corals in dark areas. All were healthy and not bleaching.
There were patches of
Button zoanthids on the shore. And one particularly soft silty spot had many different kinds of sea pens:
Flowery sea pens,
Spiky sea pens,
Slender sea pens,
Sea pencils. As well as
ceriathids. None of them were bleaching.
Melted chocolate sponge was the most abundant sponge, covering large areas of rocks. Other kinds of sponges were dotted here and there. Where there are sponges, there are the sponge-eaters: nudibranchs! Today I saw a
Hypselodoris kanga nudibranch on a sponge - eating it?
A purple blob in the sand turned out to be
Atagema spongiosa, a nudibranch that resembles a sponge! I also saw two small
Pink-gilled nudibranchs, and a egg ribbon near them - perhaps laid by one of them.
Today, I saw many
Sponge synaptid sea cucumbers all over the survey area draped on sponges. But only one
Thorny sea cucumber, and one
Pink warty sea cucumber. Also only one
Painted sand star in the seagrass, and one
Crown sea star on the rock. But two
Blue feather stars. The rest of the team saw many more feather stars.
The large patches of lush
Spoon seagrass that I saw for the first time during our
Aug 2018 survey are still there. There were also Spoon seagrasses among the rocks and in small patches in the Changi Beach Club lagoon. I couldn't find any
Hairy spoon seagrass that I've been seeing since
Jun 2012.
The mangrove trees that settled on the artificial seawall in one of the lagoons are doing well. There was two tall
Perepat trees, several shorter
Api-api putih trees, one
Api-api bulu, and one
Bakau putih.
The huge fig tree at the boardwalk was figging! In the dark, I kept hearing 'pop-pop' like people playing mahjong. I realised it was figs dropping as some animals were feeding in the tree (maybe bats?). At sunrise, I saw several hornbills feeding in the tree, with figs dropping constantly as they did. I think the tree is a Johor fig (
Ficus kerkhovenii).
As I finished up the survey, I saw one person with a plastic bag. He seems to be collecting something from the rocks and pillars. Probably snails.
Fishing and trapping goes on at the Changi Coastal Boardwalk 24/7. Even at low spring tide at the crack of dawn, there were people already setting up many long fishing poles.
Along the survey route, I saw many abandoned nets and traps. Some were fresh, others were already covered or surrounded by colourful marine life. Fortunately, I didn't see the long fish trap under the jetty anymore.
Near Squance Rock aka Loyang Rock, there was a sampan that appeared to be laying nets or traps.
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. Here's about how
coastal boardwalks can do more harm than good.
Posts by others on this survey
Loh Kok Sheng
Jianlin Liu surveyed the western side of this survey area
Dayna Cheah
Joleen Chan
Other surveys on other shores
Chay Hoon surveyed another part of Changi
Vincent Choo
Marcus Ng surveyed yet another part of Changi
