Indeed today was rather challenging because the tide was receding when we came in and the team has only about 1 hour to quickly finish all things before the tide covers the shore.
First things first before the tide comes back is to catch a good view of the entire CJ at a 0.2m tide level at 7:10am. Ran up the observation tower because there was a long list of things to do today in a short one hour. Panting and sweating, the sunrise has made it all worthwhile.
Purpose of doing this: to compare the view with the one from Google Earth and monitor for any sandbar movement if possible. Good to continue this for a long term period over years.
Next stop is to the coral rubble to start taking salinity tests from the extreme south to extreme north of CJ (CJ is big!). Met up with Ria who was checking the site out. Took a quick snapshot of a dead fish washed ashore.
There were many carpet and peacock anemones doing well there between beacon and house no. 1 jetty.
I did not have the luxury of time to search for animals but this sea star appeared near my footing. Thought it is a common sea star (Archaster typicus) but after showing Ria, she corrected to me this is Luidia maculata which is eight-armed and its the first time both of us saw this at Chek Jawa. Horray! CJ is recovering, this is a good sign.
The underside of the sea star with pointed tube feet.
Quickly, went to the other parts of the shore to take salinity test and also took this photo of the hardworking Teamseagrass team in action from afar.
Siti shouted to me when I was at the extreme north, I thought she needed some help urgently so I ran over. Found out actually she wanted to tell me tide's coming in, so time to go. However, I still have quite some stuffs to do, so tried to finish as soon as possible.
And I ended up leaving CJ by the mangrove side again since the tide has already came in by a lot when I finished :-)
And we gathered at House no. 1 to do some washing of gears and ourselves followed by a fabulous breakfast at a cosy spot facing the sea, prepared by Ria. Thank you!
Thanks also to Andy who kindly picked me up near my home.
Left early with Jingkai. Sorry couldn't be there with the rest to the boardwalk.
Can't wait for next Teamseagrass trip at Cyrene!
4 comments:
Wow! The last time I saw a Luidia maculata was like more than a year ago at BB! Good to see that they survived the January flood.
yup... was very happy that they are around :)
I think the fish is Drepane punctata (Linnaeus, 1758) - otters once left a partial carcass of this fish behind which Kelvin Lim at the Raffles Museum later identified.
That's interesting Siva!
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