Adventures on Sentosa Island

13 May 2009 - A group of us were out at 7am today to explore the shores of Sentosa island. Now, you may wonder, would there be any marine life in areas as heavily developed and commercialised as Sentosa?

The answer? You bet! And this time, we're not exploring natural shores, but the man-made islet opposite Siloso Beach.

The substrate at the islet was rather silty and every step we took made the water murky. Nevertheless, the group still managed to make some interesting finds like this Laganum Sand Dollar.

Laganum Sand Dollars are rather rare. They are listed as 'Vulnerable' on the Red List of threatened animals of Singapore. Thus, it was really a nice surprise to find one in this man-made lagoon.

Another interesting find will be this tiny horseshoe crab. It is only about 1cm in diameter!

There were plenty of these Pearl Conch (better known as "Gong-Gong") on the shores... See its cute little eyes peeking out at us?

Another surprise find will be this Polka-Dot Nudibranch which Kok Sheng found.

And here's another interesting creature - a Spotted Moon Crab! This fella is really quick at burrowing into the sand!

Spotted this track while exploring the area near the rocks... Can you figure out what made this?

It's a track left behind by a monitor lizard!

And quite by chance, we spotted a huge colony of these Common Sea Stars near where the tracks were. They are really well-camouflaged, lying half-buried in the sand. But once you spot one, the rest just seemed to just "pop" into sight! They are probably at least 50 of them in this area. We caught this pair engaging in some "hanky-panky". =P

And while Kian Wah and I were bending over to photograph the sea stars, this Blue-tailed Penaeid Prawn suddenly sprang from its burrow and stranded itself on the sand right in front of us!

And here's a photo of the "rescued" prawn. We later released it back to the sea. =)

After this little episode, the group decided to check out another shore nearby - the natural reef at Tanjong Rimau.

This is my second visit to the shore and I'm nevertheless still amazed at the amount of corals there. The photo above is just a small sample of what we saw.

Also spotted is this special nudibranch. I've no idea what species this is though...

Many different types of crabs can be found in the coral reef area. This is a Hairy Crab.

And this is a Brown Egg Crab (aka Floral Egg Crab). It's poisonous, so don't attempt to eat it!

This Red Egg Crab is also poisonous and cannot be eaten.

Another poisonous crab we saw today is the Mosaic Reef Crab. It looks rather similar to the Red Egg Crab, but has more white mottled patterns on its red shell. Unfortunately, it scuttled away too quickly for me to get a picture.

The funny thing was, as the mosaic crab scurried to hide underneath a rock, it "chased out" this Three-spined Toadfish!

Some people find this fish ugly, but Kok Sheng and I think it has a pretty cute face! I didn't manage to get a close-up shot of its face, but you can check out Kok Sheng's photo here.

We found a few of these cowries too...

And a Reef Bristleworm...

The group today was pretty adventurous and we explored the area beyond the beacon. In fact, we took a 30 minute walk round the island to finish our trip at the shore near Underwater World!

As you can see, the terrain was not that easy to navigate... Very rocky, which means lots of foot reflexology! Some areas can be a bit slippery too...

Nevertheless, it was a pretty good walk. We saw some interesting stuff, like this patch of zoanthids in a rock pool.

There were a couple of Orange Fan Worms in the rock pool too...

And plenty of gobies in the tidal pools. I think this is a Common Frill-fin Goby.

Here's another cute looking fish. Not sure what species it is though...

And another one... Is this a Bengal Sergeant?

There are plenty of these snails too. They can be found in a variety of colours and patterns!

Soon, it is time for us to say goodbye to this beautiful shore. Tanjong Rimau is not only home to wonderful marine life; we also got to admire the spectacular natural cliff formations of Sentosa!