East Coast Park briefly

There is a shallow lagoon at East Coast Park which has slowly been taken over by seagrasses. At super low tide, a long sand bar stretches out seaward. 

On a brief super low tide, under a full moon, I found lush seagrasses with many interesting creatures. 

The sand bar is teeming with burrowing predatory snails. Today, I saw many Fig snails 'emerging' from the sand. In particular, there was one in an odd situation that I've not seen before. Was it eating something? I also saw many Weasel olive snails, many Oval moon snails and some Margined conch snails. I also some small Fan shell clams.

My special echinoderm find today was a small bright orange 10-armed feather star with its arms curled up. I also saw many small Black sea urchins, but no White Salmacis sea urchins. There were also still lots of Tiny red sea cucumbers (which are not babies of bigger sea cucumbers and do not grow any bigger). I only saw one Pink warty sea cucumber. On the sandy bar, there were many small Cake sand dollars, and I saw one brittlestar. I didn't see any sea stars today.

A stretch of seagrass had dense growths of Elegant branching sponges with some Purple branching sponge. I've not come across this kind of situation before. There were also some anemones: a Rough anemone with its guts flopping out of its mouth (may be a way to trap prey?), a Swimming anemone, a Pearly anemone.

We first saw seagrasses growing here in Jun 2013. Over the years, they have been thriving. As on my last survey here in Dec 2022 and May 2021 and Jun 2016, there were still lush growths of Needle seagrass (both narrow and broad leaf blades) and Spoon seagrass (large leaf blades). I only saw a few clumps of Serrated ribbon seagrass but saw larger patches of Noodle seagrass - I first saw these in May 2021, these two species are not as commonly seen on our shores. I saw one small clump of Tape seagrass with long leaf blades near the high shore, it had developing female flowers.

There were two people gathering on the shore. One had caught a pretty large fish with just a hand net in the shallow water! I am quite impressed. He warned me about stonefish there though.

What is the fate of this shore?

These shores slated for massive reclamation outlined recently in the Long-Term Plan Review. There were additional details, plans for a 'Long Island' opposite East Coast Park is now official. In addition to more reclamation along that shoreline, already unveiled in 2013.

How to visit these shores

See for yourself the amazing marine life on East Coast shores before they are gone!

What the shore looks like in daylight.

These shores are easy for ordinary people to explore at low spring tide. More details in "East Coast Park - Surprising intertidal adventures for the family".