Team Seagrass at Chek Jawa

Today was a fine day when I step out of my house in Boon Lay. But 2 hours later, when I step out of the bus arriving at Changi Village, the heavy rain started... And we were to do our seagrass monitoring today!


By the time I reach the jetty, almost everyone was there and in no time, almost 20 people gathered and away to Pulau Ubin on the bumboat we went! By the time we got to the island's jetty, the rain got so heavy that we had to wait it out.


Eventually we still made it to Chek Jawa and wasted no time in getting down to business. Instead of the usual two groups, we spilt into three with one doing a new test site. As usual, I stuck to Site 1 for the sake of consistency of scientific data collection (so I claim =P).


Upon arriving at my Transect 1, I found something new and pretty-looking. Nice shade of purple for a stake eh?


A closer look... Notice the drills? And yea, those lovely purple stuff are actually drills' eggs, matured. The yellow ones are immature eggs. Thanks to Ron for identifying and pointing it out. These belong to Thais malayensis, identification courtesy of Dr. Tan Koh Siang, a molluscs expert.

Just as we thought the rain had died down, it started pouring on us again... and it made the monitoring tough. All the water were murked up.


This is the kind of shot of the quadrat you get before...


And after the downpour.

Despite the rain, I hopped along with a new Seagrasser, Jerial (Pardon me if your name is spelt wrongly. Please correct me.), to explore the area after we were done. And since we were free and Kok Sheng needed help for his project (http://cjproject.blogspot.com) which monitors Chek Jawa's mortality and recruitment after the mass death earlier this January. While helping him, I got the excuse to explore even more and once again, here goes the critter list.


Sandfish Sea Cucumbers


Another sea cucumber. Maybe a Cucumarid sp.? Id courtesy of Ron.


Brittle Star


Sand Star


Probably a Gymnanthenea sp.? Uncertain thou. (Scientific name courtesy of Ron, again.)


Sand Dollar


Carpet Anemone


Bristleworm/ Fireworm


And this one is another species of bristleworm. Guess it's a shorter and fatter version.


As the dusk drew near, I took this shot of Chek Jawa from its northern edge. Huge isn't it?


And this panoramic view of CJ from the tower (Thanks to Yuan Kai for putting it all together). Hope the future generations will get the chance to continue seeing this beautiful and amazing piece of Nature's wonder.