Punggol Point, Aftermath of the Monsoon

Hello Everyone,

Upon seeing the short non-rainy window on sunday, and after convincing my father that the weather was great, and after consulting the weather and tide guru, which showed an approximate 1.0m low tide, we managed to reach Punggol Point...

 So here, it's obvious that the the skies are really really cloudy... a foreshadow of a rain maybe? :P

 The usual scene: the black boulders and sand. The tide was receeding at this time... Was on the verge of rejoicing when I noticed a number of people, bending over and picking up "something"... Wanted to approach them but they didn't seem friendly so I scrapped the idea...

 The monsoons seemed to have washed up tons of mangrove seeds! The beach was littered with them! Took a rooted seed home to try my luck at growing a mangrove at home. :P

 Now, this is an interesting one. Remember fighting over that white, oval-shaped thing in your Ice Kachang? Yup, its the ATTAP CHEE or NIPAH PALM. The ATTAP CHEE (CHEE = Seed on Hokkien) actually comes from this fruit that you are looking at. The white thingy is actually embedded within this woody seed pod. So, if you ever see any of these do try to grow them! :D

 There were also lots of BEAD ANEMONIES. The squirt water when you touch them!

 A badly eroded cowrie that was possibly a OVUM COWRIE. Would have been a beauty if it wasn't eroded...

 These few men were actually collecting VENUS CLAMS and GREEN TUA TOWS... They actually collected a huge plastic bag of them... tragically, they were not the only ones searching for the animals...

 Look! some of the common residents did not fail to disappoint!The GUAM FALSE LIMPET was the most common of the 3 (or 4) shells in the photograph.

 A BURNT MUREX! What a rare visitor! We usually do not see these shells along this coast... The last time i saw one was in BINTAN (do refer to my previous few post on Bintan... :) ) Tragically, he's really eroded... (Sorry, addressed it as a "he" for fun's sake! )

Another unusual visitor, the SURF CLAM. They are usually found in high densities along East Coast Park or Changi Bay...

 And our local representative shell!!! The SINGAPORE KEYHOLE LIMPET (Diodora singaporensis... :) )

 Oyster-farmers harvesting oysters along the rocks... This is good if you actually look at the density of oysters along this coast... totally freaky

 The sun sets... Dark arrives...

 And a DOG CONCH! Another injured (I mean, eroded) citizen of our shores... Btw, they are edible. :)

 Johore Industrial Region... There"s also Serangoon Island in the background...

 Punggol Point jetty... Usually the setting off and returning point for those going to OBS (Outward Bounds Singapore) ... I've been there! ;P

 

Well, although it did not seem like a really good trip, at least I managed to obtain some specimens... :) Hope that the next trip will be fruitful!

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! :)

Punggol Point Trip 3

Hello!

   As promised, there will be a blog post on my shelling trips. So here it is, managed to visit punggol point again. One lesson learnt though, never go to the beach for shelling during high tide. I didn't have a really great shelling trip but did manage to find some shells that were never seen on the beach before. :)

 So here is the beautiful Sunset i managed to catch. Luckily, the weather was perfect for such photos. I got many of these. :)

 This is one of the usuals, the jingle shells. Found about 10 of these. Due to the high tide, i could only comb the upper swash line which is quite sad... T_T

 And here it is, a Lineated Nerite. This one's alive but i managed to find an empty one later. It was still high tide so speaks alot on the snail's ability to tolerate heat.

 The shell "colony". There was a Chinaman's hat shell but i decided not to pick it as it was a juvenile. :)

 And the pick of the day! An Olive shell!!! It was lying within a shell clump and i almost missed it! However, i'm not so sure if it is a native species since the sand here is reclaimed.

 The shell and coral.

 The coast was covered with sea almond trees. I used to use the dried leaves and soak it in water. It stains the water tannin brown and is really good for Fighting fishes.

 Sunset again...

 And again... i guess this is my fave . the beach looks so clean!

 And the water is really clean too! By now the tide ws receeding real quickly. The sand bar offshore was also slowly showing.

 The end of the shore. By now i guess it's 7.15pm. Suprisingly, the beach is pristine so is the water. Kinda like those in Bintan.

 Haha! Found this stick in the sand and wrote this on the sand. I also left it on the shore for those who sees it to figure out who wrote it! :P

 Barnacles. Acorn barnaclesto be exact. These guys managed to colonise the whole tree root. Btw, the whole tree is uprooted and long dead.

 The sand bar. It seems to inch closer to the shore after during every visit. I eventually managed to step onto it when the tide had receeded far enough.

 And just for the record, another Melongena Shell!!! This guy was feeding when Iyanked him out but I am really apologetic as it was totally an accident.

 This is Johore. Highly industrialised Johore. You can also see Serangoon Island in the centre.

 And at 7,45pm, i managed to take a snapshot of thewater beneath. Crystal clear. This is interesting... -From the Jetty.

 Worm Shell. Thit time, it is empty. (The last time I colected one still had its resident in it. Oops. )

Keyhole Limpet. You do see many of them along the shore d to the high number of sponges in the intertidal area in which they reputedly feed on.

And two lovely pink clams. the clam on the top is much richer in colour.

So here it is, the day's haul. It isn't really alot but i'm pleasantly suprised at the range of shells available since I have never seen many of these species around before. :)