ReefWALK

Today's tide was rather low, and we were able to venture out quite a bit. Also saw tonnes of tiny mobile creatures but thankfully Peizee brought her trusty container ^^ Didn't bring cammie's underwater housing so had to refrain from dunking her into the water. Venturing out beyond the rock bund, applecow spotted this so-not-shy octopus just under a soft coral. This one was rather large, and is the largest I have seen in Singapore ^^ Well, considering the rest were really really small juveniles...


Nearby, a Goniopora head was partially sticking out of the water, giving a rather good juxtaposition on how different a hard coral CAN look like in and out of water. When it's fully submerged, the polyps are fully extended,looking pretty much like little daisies waving about in the sea.
There was also another nicely convoluted Tubinaria around the area. Really glad we had a chance to peep round the rock bund. Haven't really been able to do that the last few walks.


Of course our friends the anemones were out as usual. Don't remember taking any shots of the branching anemones previously, so here's a couple that we saw today. These aren't as pretty or brightly colored like some of the carpet anemones that were also around but they are still anemones all the same!!


The small little tidepools seem to have trapped a number of critters today. First spotted was this common squid. It was nearly black and hardly moving, looked pretty much like a harmless twig at first glance. Closer inspection saw through this camouflage, and after being placed in the tub, it promptly changed to this light yellow-brown.


In another pool, this fire clam appeared to be a peacock anemone, with it's long beautiful tentacles and all. What a shock it gave our guides when they saw it moving!! It's a bivalve, just like the clams we eat, but this one seems to like keeping it's shells ajar when other clams prefer to shut theirs up. It was even "swimming" by propulsion by closing and opening its shells...



Credits go to woceht for spotting this small upside down jellyfish. Seems to be the season for them since they have been sighted rather regularly on other intertidal walks. This little fella was in a really really shallow pool of mud, gently pulsating. I wonder how many of us stepped on it without knowing it was there...The pool of water it was in was really really really shallow, and all that could be noticed was a rather flat pulsating blob in the mud...


There was also a striped catfish sighting that I was too slow to catch on cammie, though spotting this juvenile rabbitfish at the base of a coral head made up for it!! Despite the entire group crowding around it, it just stayed very very still as we all took turns snapping away at it. B even commented that its tail may have been stuck...


And as always, we had our little sales booth set up for everybody (including the guides!!) to buy souvenirs. ^^ Good thing the rain held off despite lightning flashes while we were on our way to Kusu.