Chek Jawa (South) still alive

We do our annual low tide check up on the southern area of Chek Jawa near the Beacon, with kind permission and support from NParks.

We find healthy hard corals and soft corals, and sponges and sea fans. The seagrasses were particularly lush and green. I felt today that the southern sand bar had gotten wider, and that sand had built up on the landward side of the sand bar and in the area directly beneath the Beacon. The team make all the special finds: seahorse, stonefish, lots of Knobbly sea stars and more.

As usual, the rest of the team make all the special finds. A seahorse! A large stonefish! Also large colourful fishes and small stingrays. The seagrass meadows are a great nursery for juvenile fish including young barracuda. Little cardinalfish were seen swimming really close to a carpet anemone, a behaviour we have seen on other shores too.

Collage of photos by the team. Links to their albums below.

The team observed octopuses huge and small, one attempting to catch a pink-speckled shrimp-goby out of its burrow. Spearer mantis shrimps were also spotted. And many different kinds of sea anemones too. Thanks to Samuel for a track of our survey!

Collage of photos by the team. Links to their albums below.

The team as a whole saw 10 Knobbly sea stars, large ones as well as medium sized ones. They all looked healthy on the upper and underside. Their knobs were intact and they did not have injuries like the Knobblies we saw on Cyrene in Feb 2026. At Cyrene, many of the Knobblies had lost the top five knobs, with injuries that suggest the knobs fell off, rather than being bitten off by predators. We still don't know what happened at Cyrene.

Collage of photos by the team. Links to their albums below.

Recently, I sensed that we have been seeing much fewer Noble volutes that in the past. So we are now going to document every live Noble volute that we see. As a team, we saw onlyy 5 live volutes at Chek Jawa today. This large beautiful snail is restricted to our part of the world, in particular, Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. We have a duty to protect them. Hopefully, our sightings will help encourage further study into whether the populations on our shores are okay.

Collage of photos by the team. Links to their albums below.

Today, I saw more than 20 small to medium-sized Boulder pore corals near the beacon. Most were nice and brown. This is similar to what I saw in May 2025 and May 2024. I saw one medium Boulder sandpaper coral - only the bottom half was alive. Along the way from House No. 1 jetty to the Beacon, I saw three small colonies of Flowery disk coral (Marcus saw one that was bleaching), and what looks like one dead one. There were also patches of Zebra coral. Marcus saw the small colony of Goniopora corals.

Today, I saw some small to medium sized flowery soft corals of various kinds. This is the first time I've see these since the explosion of Spiky flowery soft corals we saw in Jun 2023. I didn't see a lot of sea fans and only a few clumps of zoanthids. But all soft corals seemed alright.

Today, as at our May 2025 survey, there seems to be more larger healthier clumps of common sponges, compared to our survey in May 2024. But the variety of sponges remains low and I still didn't see any Barrel sponges (the last time I saw these here was in Jun 2023. Much of the coral rubble near the beacon was bare.

Seagrasses are still growing lush and fresh near the Beacon. Smooth ribbon seagrasses are doing very well growing in a large portion of the area between the boardwalk almost all the way to the beacon, as well as even on the sandbar. Spoon seagrasses (large leaves) grew thick and lush, as well as Needle seagrass with broad and narrow leaves. I saw some Fern seagrass. I saw two clumps of Tape seagrass with cropped leaves at the reef edge near the Beacon. 

I felt today that the southern sand bar had gotten wider, and that sand had built up on the landward side of the sand bar and in the area directly beneath the Beacon. Will need to wait for Google Earth to update views for this year to see if there has been a change. The latest displayed currently is for 2024.

What is the fate of Chek Jawa?

Chek Jawa and Pulau Sekudu is slated for reclamation in the Long-Term Plan Review. The plan includes a road link (black line) from the mainland jumping off at Punggol, crossing to Pulau Ubin through Chek Jawa to jump off to Pulau Tekong before circling back to the mainland on Changi East. Proposed reclamation (in yellow) will bury Pasir Ris shores, Pulau Sekudu and Chek Jawa as well as a large stretches of Changi Beach.

The Singapore Blue Plan 2018

Among the Proposed Areas for Immediate Conservation Priority, the Singapore Blue Plan 2018 proposes that the intertidal and subtidal marine areas of Pulau Ubin to be designated Marine Reserve.

The proposed area would include Tanjung Chek Jawa, the largest known intertidal area in northern Singapore. Considered one of the richest in Singapore, Chek Jawa comprises many adjacent ecosystems: coastal hill forest, mangrove areas, rocky shores, seagrass meadows, coral communities, and sandy areas. Chek Jawa remains an icon of celebration and hope for many Singaporeans since its reprieve from reclamation in 2001.

DOWNLOAD the Plan, SUPPORT the Plan! More on the Singapore Blue Plan 2018 site.

Photos

High-res photos by me on wildsingapore flickr

Photos by others on this survey

Rui Quan Oh



Dylan Seng


Marcus Ng


Jason Ooi

Samuel Lau



Others on this survey: Muhd Nasry, Ian Mun.