My favourites of the Bintan Trip

Hello everyone!

So here it is, the treasures of the Bintan Seashells! So here we go!

1) Helicostyla annulata, Yellow Banded Land Snail
    These 2 shells were bought from a resort shop at S$1.40. I guess they should be native to Bintan or at least, Southeast Asia... A lovely yellow shell that is worth its price I think.

 2)Murex poppei, Poppei Murex
    This guy cost me S$3.00. Not a perfect shell but thats the best the shop could offer.

 3) Turris babylonia, babylon Turrid
     This one is a perfect shell and the best part is, it cost only S$1.00! It is the only one I have even though it is fairly common.

 4) Unidentified Olive Shell
    Ok, I have to admit. I did not actually try to identify it but I will try to look it up soon! Do help me if you know what species this is! :)

 5) Unidentified Pink Moon Snail and Glyphepithema alapapilionis alapaplionis,Butterfly Moon Snail
    I have tried many time to identify this pink one but to no avail... It has a pinkish-gold interior. Help me if you know please! :) The one on the left is a Butterfly Moon Snail, fairly uncommon in Asia.

 6) Mitra ambigua, Ambiguous Mitre
    I am not too sure if this is the correct species but it looks similar. Found it along the secret coast. :P

 another photo...

 7) Astraea calcar, Spurred Turban Shell
     I actually managed to collect 2 others but none of them is as perfect as this one. This guy comes from the Mayang Sari bay, under the trees...

 8) Fragum unedo, Strawberry Cockle
     Hmm...although this guy's not really rare but I think it's one of the best. I never got to see one in Singapore. It is about the size of a ipod. :)

9) Worm Shell
   This one's a beauty. I have never gotten any worm shell that is coiled so nicely and in good condition so this is my first!

 10) Chicoreus brunneus, Burnt Murex
      The Burnt Murex was my child favourite shell. Finally, managed to attain my wish to collect, not buy, these shells. best still, I got 8 of them...

 11)Tellina rostrata , Rostrate Tellins
      These shells are paper thin and I had to wrap like 7 layers of tissue paper to protect it. Luckily, all of them survived the trip back.

 12) Janthina pallida, Pallida Janthina
      I heard that this is a rarity 3 shell so I was extremely extremely excited when I spotted it. If not for that second look I probably would have missed it. This one's from Mayang Sari beach, lucky eh? :)

So here it is, the gems :)

Bintan Shelling expedition 2

Hello!

    So as promised, I will be sharing with you the stuff from the third shelling trip. Err...i also made a mistake on the previous post. I have made 5 major shelling trips not 4. :) So, this time the trip spanned the Left wing of the Mayang Sari Bay (Yup, time constraints was the problem and thus not the whole coast). In any case, I did manage to get a substantial number of shells and even some which were seriously unexpected! The waters were much more wild over here but since it was a bay, it isn't as strong as those at the headlands. This trip took me about 2 hrs and I decided to pay more attention to the rocky area at the ends of the beach and it was worthwhile! So without further a do, here are the photos of the shells from the trip!

 So befor this, we had lunch at the kelong there and we stumbled upon this... a huge pile of fluted giant clam shells! They are from the Tridacna genus, along with the giant clam (see last post! :) )

 The relaxing view from the kelong... The whole place is so quite and calm... And having a family of 4 has its great benefits! Just enough for a mahjong game!!! so we took out the mahjong cards while waiting for the food to arrive.

 Brittle stars, there were many at the rocky area. had to flip over the rocks to catch them and photograph it... :)

 A brittle star itching to get out of the pail...

 And sea cucumbers! I feel really guilty when I picked them up... They actually excreted their intenstines when I collected them! SORRY!

 Low tide is the best time for shelling. The beach is covered with millions of sand balls created by the sand bubbler crabs! They live in similar habitats as the soldier crabs but the sand balls they create are smaller.

 And POOF! Two Burnt Murexes!!! This was my favourite shell before I got it from Thailand and I guess I was lucky. Found 8 of them! Well... I could have collected more but the others were occupied by hermit crabs so I had to let them go...

 The sand balls...

 This is the first find while combing the sandy shore, a Keyhole Limpet. Surprisingly, I only found one here... Hmm... probably due to the lack of sponges in the area. Btw, they feed on sponges.

 The sand bar extends so much during low tide! Sigh...I had a hard time shelling considering the fact that the shore has become so huge!

 These guys were littered all over the wrackline. The scaled nerite is a very common snail on their shores. I actually managed to collect a whole box filled with them!

 Assortment of shells... Sadly, the cowrie has been badly eroded. The Common Button Shell and Cerith shells were also littered along the shore by the thousands!

 The tide seems to be rising...

 And a whole load of coral bits! I managed to bring some back. Apparently, we are allowed to bring coral bits back to Singapore. (In any case, Singapore also has corals)

 Thankfully, I am still young or else i may have missed this guy! An Asselus Cowrie. It isn't very big...about 2 to 3 cm long but I still collected it anyway. :)

 And another assortmentof shells. Do you see the Moon Snail at the bottom?

 Another Burnt Murex! Wow...I guess it was my lucky day!

 Callista erycina, or Red Callusta. I never find these in Singapore. Or probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time. :P

 A shell pile! I actually managed to find a great mini-shell in here! Can you identify it? :)

 A smelly Moon Crab. This one's dead but my sis and I managed to catch 19 of them back at Trikora Beach. They were so easy to catch! Don't worry... we returned them once we had finished the shelling trip. :)

 And  a mini Burnt Murex! So Cute!

 Oh! I suddenly realised that this looks like some animal! haha! And there were Yellow Pacific Cockles, Trachycardium flavum, too!

 Look what we have here! Rostrate Tellin! I love the Pink hue of the shell!

 The sand bar that extends inshore. I realised that the sand bar is created due to the 2 low tides...

 I'm rich! Pink Sand Dollars are everywhere! I collected one box full of it. Surprisingly, I did not find any live ones along the shore or in fact, the whole trip! Hmm...

 relaxation at last...

 My apologies for providing only one photo for the 4th shelling trip. There were more Yellow Pacific Cockles, Burnt Murexes (Haha! :D ) Moon Snails, Nerites among others. One thing to note though, the Black Mouthed Conches here are longer and larger! Btw, if you have been to Bintan, you would recognise that the building at the back looks familiar... Hmm :P

Ok, so this is the end of the shelling trips. I will be showing you the last trip soon and also, the gems that Mum, Dad and I had collected so "akan datang"! they are really worth looking at!
In the mean time, maybe you could guess what shells I collected! :)

I'm Back! Bintan Shelling Expedition 1

OMG people!

    I have just returned from a major shelling trip in... Bintan! Thats right, if you do not know where is Bintan, do check out my previous post on Bintan Shells. So, what did I do? Ok, every major holiday, we would usually go somewhere for a major shelling trip and I have had a HUGE haul from the whole trip. One luggage full so we really had to be careful not to smash the fragile ones. So, if you are planning a shelling trip in Southeast Asia, just a word for you, Never expect anything from an Indo-Pacific beach... what do I mean? It means that you will never be able to get the "ideal" shell haul from the beach. It may be much better (in my case) or worse so don't prepare anything or thinkn you will collect this or that shell because it may not even appear. For example, I found only one pathetic Spider Conch for the whole entire trip but I found many other shells like a Enlongate Janthina, Strawberry Cockle... and many others (ok, they may be common but its a first time for me! :) ) So in total, I have made 4 major shelling trips and 4 minor ones (major = more than an hour) and I guess all the sandfly bites were pretty worth it and the shelling trips helped me to get a nice tan. :P
So here is the first 2 trips. These were held on the beautiful beaches of Eastern Bintan, Trikora region. The sea is lovely and crystal clear and best of all, the low tide stretches like hundreds of metres offshore! Sadly, the haul from this section wasn't too good but when I went over to the other side, it was a whole new experience...

 So here it is, Bintan Cabana Resort... a 50 minute ride away from the ferry terminal. Along the way we went past beautiful shorelines and coast.

 And as a welcome gift, we had a rainbow! The best part is it was not and did not rain even though we got the rainbow!

 My sister and I shelling... the sun now isn't that hot :) we did not find many shails, just some bivalves and certain cerith shells that are usually occupied by hermit crabs. The sea was pretty calm so not many shells were washed onshore. :(

All of a sudden, Dad tells me that there is a better beach at the Eastern Wing of the beach! I did not take this photo and regretfully, did not take any photos of the shells there either but the mostly were Ark shells and Black Lipped Conches. I also did find many One-toothed Turban Shells. :)

 7a.m., I wake up in the morning... But it's not Friday. :) The shoreline is filled with thousands of Mud Cerith Shells!

 The first find of the day! A Whelk!

 Ceriths again... the white one is a Common Vertagus.

 And Woo Hoo! A Giant Clam! this guys a juvenile, about the size of a fist. A Giant Clam (This is its name! )

 And we have hundreds of Soldier crabs!

 A pair here...

 This is what I found on the rocks, a Melongena Shell and a Bituberculate Rock Shell!

 The resort...I am now easily 80 metres away from the shore.

 Haiz... What a relaxing place...

 And In the afternoon, thr tide rises and this is what you get. Crystal clear water for hundreds of metres out!

 My resort room.

 This is the western end of the coast. Apparently, it is filled with mangroves for a section so we decided to explore it. There weren't many shells in the mangroves though...

And relaxation for the sore back at last... I did visit the Eastern end of the coast but again, did not photograph anything there but I did find a Spider Conch! I also found a Straberry Cockle and over two dozens of Black Lipped Conches. The same few (Ark, One-toothed) were there coupled on with a few Cardita Clams! I will be showing you the photos of what I have collected very soon! Also, this blog will be updated on the other few shelling trips soon so stay close! The next few will not be in Trikora but Lagoi and I have lots to tell! With that, good night! :)