Catching the weather window.

Hello everyone,

Well, we have had the best of the weather and tides today. A 0.1 tide with perfect weather, not too sunny nor cloudy, and best of all, at 5p.m. :) As such, this unplanned trip eventually turned out to be an exciting and amazing visit. Granted, only a few shells were collected but still, it it was wonderful as we managed (or at least I managed) to catch the best of Punggol Point... :D

 Well, the first sight after stepping out of the car... lovely weather and a cooling breeze... :)

 Well, I did not photograph some of the creatures prior to this PEACOCK ANEMONE because my camera decided to fail me due to the lack of battery. However, it finally "revived", how it did it, I have no idea... In any case, it was great news! :D This was the only PEACOCK ANEMONE I spotted.

And there were numerous CARPET ANEMONIES!!! A mental calculation would bring the total number of CARPET ANEMONIES spotted to close to a dozen! They were lovely and a rare sight, considering the fact that the only other place I've seen them would be at Check Jawa.

All these animals were hidden beneath the huge patch of ULVA GRASS.

Surprisingly, I actually managed to spot this! A SPONGE CRAB! Yep, it was seen moving  and is only the size of a marble! Haha! Cute guy!

The internal view...

And we managed to see hundreds of these CARINATE ROCK SHELLS. Apparently, they were amongst the ULVA WEEDS... Not so "Rocky" as comapred to its cousins... :)

Another CARPET ANEMONE! I just can't get over these things!

And a cute BALL SEA CUCUMBER! This is the second one.

CARINATE ROCK SHELL in its original habitat.

So... as I continued my journey down the coast, I met a remarkable man! (Not so sure about his name...) But HE MANAGED TO CAPTURE THIS OCTOPUS!!! (ba chat) Lovely! And best still, it was caught and later released! :D Nice way to practice catch and release eh?

Now, make a guess... what's this brownish lump?

A DOG CONCH! Better still, A LIVE DOG CONCH!

MY "collection" of weird and unique creatures! Just to calm you readers down, the overturned fish is actually, firstly, ALIVE. Secondly, I actually managed to capture 7 of these SINGAPORE TOADFISHES (Allenbatrachus reticulatus). Thirdly, the BLUE FLOWER CRAB isn't living, but instead, a moulted shell. No worries, I released them back once I was done with the photo-taking. :D

Sponges... As always, our local coast are strewn with rubbish. I APPEAL TO ALL READERS, while shelling, beach combing, fishing or simply strolling along the beach, please please keep our beaches clean. Everyone has a part to play alright? :)

And a WEIRD LOOKING ANEMONE. :)

And look!

A MELONGENA SNAIL! From the top, it actually looked extremely inconspicuous, not for the untrained eye.

And a LONG BLACK SEA CUCUMBER (Holothuria leucospilota) and look at the beautiful RED SPONGES at the side!

The BLACK SEA URCHINS (Temnopleurus toreumaticus)
 were showing up in thousands!

And tragically, this is the carcass of a SMOOTH OTTER. Occasionally, we do see families of them visit this shore. They are listed as critically endagered in Singapore. This wasn't what I would like to see but it's a clear reminder that we do not own the straits, but instead, share it with other innocent animals as well...

My catch before releasing them, BYE!

How low the tide went...

I returned to clean up my shells at the toilet and while leaving, spotted a SILVER AROWANA in the freshwater pond. :)

The offshore rocks, reachable only at negative tides..

The sun sets in the west, in the direction of Jurong. :P Throughout the trip, I did managed to spot other interesting creatures such as an OVUM COWRIE, SNAPPING SHRIMPS, THUNDER CRABS the size of two fist put together (!) and thousands of FIRE WORMS.

Till then, remember, the beach is part of mother nature. Protect it. (BTW, IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, THE TIDES TODAY ARE SIMILARLY LOW!!! HURRY DOWN NOW IF YOU WANNA EXPERIENCE WHAT I DID! :D :D :D )

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! :)