Double S - Stonefish and Sekudu

Have you heard about the story of Pulau Sekudu? Or the legend of why the tiny island near Chek Jawa is named after a frog? Let me show you.

Happy frog rock on Pulau Sekudu

Though it is not very convincing, but I am sure with some creative thinking, you will be able to see a happy frog looking at you. The eye spots on this rock is not natural and it was painted on by fishermen who used to come here to fish in the past. Now, the island is under restricted access and you will need to obtain a permit.

Here is the other side of the frog rock. It looks like the frog has a moustache and missing a top hat. 

The highlight of the trip for me would definitely be the hollow-cheeked stonefish (Synanceia horrida) spotted by Germaine from NParks. It was her first time visiting Pulau Sekudu, have been warned many times from many people about stonefish since her undergrad years studying horseshoe crabs and today, she found the stonefish. In fact, there were two stonefish today within stone throw from each other.

Stonefish 1

Stonefish 2, slightly smaller

Obviously the stonefish weren't not happy to see us while we got excited over them. Their grumpy faces remain as grumpy as ever. The spotted of the stonefish actually reminded us to be careful when walking on the reefs. No where is safe and as you can see, the stonefish really looks like a piece of ordinary stone. Beware, they have 13 dorsal fin spines, acting like hypodermic needles that injects venom when you step on them. It is a very painful experience.

Raised dorsal fin spines

Stonefish is one very grumpy fish, staying very still and looks exactly like a rock on the reef.

Arriving pre-dawn, I did my usual route of going south then east round the island. As usual, the sea lettuce seaweed is every where on the island and it hides many tiny animals such as crabs, amphipods, isopods and many swimming anemones. The thick layer of seaweed definitely provided a good hiding place for these tiny animals.

Juvenile crab?

Common elbow crab

Amphipod

Marine isopod

Swimming anemone (Boloceroides mcmurrichi)

In these seaweed pools, you can still find other animals such as sea cucumbers, bigger crabs, snapping shrimps.

Purple sea cucumber

Garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra)

Stone crab (Myomenippe hardwickii)

Flower crab (Portunus pelagicus)

Snapping shrimp at burrow entrance

Snapping shrimp

I did not get to see the Sekudu knobbly sea stars today, which a few of my friends did encounter, but I came across one orange crown sea star, one painted sand star and a few biscuit sea stars.

Crown sea star (Aquilonastra coronata)

Crown sea star, underside

Rather injured looking painted sand star (Astropecten sp.)

Biscuit sea star (Goniodiscaster scaber)

There were a few orange-striped hermit crabs around.

Orange-striped hermit crab

Oh look, a yellow cuskeel (Dinematichthys iluocoteoides). This fish is usually very skittish and swims into hiding very quickly but today, the fish was rather friendly and stay around for some time before it decided to hide. The cuskeel looks very graceful when it swims.

Yellow cuskeel, when spotted

Closer look at the fish

Hiding cuskeel

This predawn trip works till after sunrise and all of us had enjoyed the golden hour moment on Pulau Sekudu with beautiful background of Chek Jawa, Pulau Tekong and Pengarang, Johor, with arriving planes.

Sunrise on Pulau Sekudu

After capturing that beautiful moment, which we did not enjoy yesterday at Chek Jawa, we continued our survey.
The noble volutes (Cymbiola nobilis) seems to be in egg laying season as they were seen laying eggs yesterday at Chek Jawa and today at Pulau Sekudu.

Noble volute laying eggs

Chay Hoon showed us this beautiful nudibranch, which we also saw it on our previous survey trip last year.

Cow nudibranch (Goniobranchus tumulifera)

With solitary fan green seaweed around, there will bound to be some super tiny strawberry slug (Coastasiella sp.) and I found one. They are really difficult to photograph.

Strawberry slug

On the high water mark, there are a few mangrove trees and some interesting snails can be found along the branches or leaves.

It is really a wonderful day at Pulau Sekudu, with beautiful sunrise and the special find of two stonefish. This trip is made possible with permission from NParks and I am grateful for the opportunity. Also thanks to Chay Hoon for the transport arrangements.

Until we meet again, Pulau Sekudu!

Posts by others:
Ria - Sunrise survey of Pulau SekuduKok Sheng on his FB
Marcus on his FBRussel on his FB
Ivan on his FB

Interesting sea slugs at Chek Jawa

Many people have visited Chek Jawa at Pulau Ubin. Be it taking a walk on the boardwalk or joining intertidal guided walks organised by NParks. As they walk through the coastal boardwalk route, they will meet the Chek Jawa white beacon standing out there in the sea. However, not many people actually know how the beacon looks like from the front. So here it is, the front image of the Chek Jawa front beacon.

Chek Jawa front beacon

I was able to take a photo from the front of the Chek Jawa beacon while conducting intertidal survey at Chek Jawa. The tide was very low today and the team was able to survey a distant in front of the Chek Jawa front beacon. This survey is made possible with permission from NParks.

Here's how the whole beacon looks like at low tide.

Whole Chek Jawa front beacon

There were 2 special highlights for me on this trip to Chek Jawa.

The first highlight is this nudibranch, spotted by Ria when she was looking at the lumpy patches on the pore corals (Porites sp.), and an egg mass next to it. Surprising everyone who saw it, the fluffy blob near the egg mass is not a anemone but a nudibranch! That triggered us to look for closely when we come across such patches on pore corals. There was a pair of them next to the egg mass.

Left: Egg mass, Right: Nudibranch

Chay Hoon has updated that this could be Phestilla lugubris and it is actually her first time seeing it.

This nudibranch is actually feeding on the pore coral.

Frontal shot of the nudinrach

We noticed that the egg mass is shaped like a pencil shaving. It has interesting patterns.

Egg mass

The second highlight of this trip is this blue dragon nudibranch that Marcus found. The actual identity of this nudibranch is still in debate.

Blue dragon nudibranch

Blue dragon showing a bit of its underside

I never knew how striking the colouration of the blue dragon is until I shot it today. Divers like myself encounter his very often when diving in Singapore waters but my underwater shots have never reflected such striking colour. This totally blew me off.

Starting from the eastern side of Chek Jawa brings us through a large seagrass lagoon before reaching the coral rubble area at the beacon. At the seagrass area, there were many interesting animals to be spotted if you look close enough, such as the plentiful garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra). Looking at these sea cucumber sure makes me hungry on a pre-dawn trip.

Garlic bread sea cucumber

Sometimes, you may even find interesting looking tiny animals such as this crab.

Unknown tiny crab, about 2 cm carapace.

Among the seagrass, these are some of the animals I spotted.

Juvenile kite butterflyfish (Parachaetodon ocellatus)

Flowery sea pen

Painted sand star (Astropecten sp.)

Other than the painted sand star, I came across many biscuit sea stars (Goniodiscaster scaber), in various sizes, and one large knobbly sea star (Protoreaster nodosus).

Biscuit sea star

Knobbly sea star, seen near the CJ beacon.

I came across a few different crabs with various behaviours.

Maroon stone crab (Menippe rumphii)

This swimming crab was using is first set of legs to do something in its mouth. I dare not disturb it.

A moulted flower crab. It's exoskeleton has already harden, so it has probably been staying with is old exoskeleton for quite some time.

We encountered a few octopuses during our survey.

Octopus

Then it decided to change colour to meet me.

I noticed that the snapping shrimp at Chek Jawa have an interesting behaviour. Some of the shrimps like to stay outside of their burrow for some time before returning into their burrow and they are usually seen at quite a distance from their burrows.

Snapping shrimp

The cleaner shrimp looks like a cooked shrimp.

Cleaner shrimp

Along the water edge, as I was heading to the rubble area at the beacon, I came across a hunting estuarine moray eel (Gymnothorax tile) and a juvenile carpet eel-blenny (Congrogadus subducens).

Estuarine moray eel

Carpet eel-blenny

There are scattered circles of tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) and most of them had long grass blades.

Tape seagrass with long grass blades

Near the CJ beacon, I spotted this squirmy animal that looks like a worm, on a dry exposed sand patch.

Being very careful and knowing that marine worm can cause a great amount of pain, I took a piece of coral rubble and place the animal in a pool of water. Tada! It's actually a reef bristleworm. It disappeared among the rubble shortly after I took this shot.

Reef bristleworm

As the sun rose and the marine animals starts to disappear, Kok Sheng came across this large spotted orange hermit crab (Dardanus megistos).

Spotted orange hermit crab

Chay Hoon found the first crinoid for this trip and she got really excited on a possibly juvenile barramudi cod (aka polka dot grouper). The fish could be an escapee from a fish farm.

Feather star (crinoid)

The cirrus at the base of the crinoid

Unfortunately, the barramudi cod was very shy and I could only take a poor image of its head.

Juvenile barramudi cod

Right after this shot, we made a quick walk out of the shore as the storm was approaching fast from Pasir Ris. Thank goodness that I looked up and saw the massive storm that has already hit mainland and alerted the whole team. We reached Chek Jawa's information kiosk before the strong wind and rain came. Fearing of fallen trees along the way out, we decided to stay and wait till the storm passed. Unfortunately, we did encounter a fallen tree on our way out of Chek Jawa and the fallen tree fell across the road, blocking our way to Ubin town. We had to make a detour to get back safely.

Once again, thanks to NPark for the permission to survey Chek Jawa. Tomorrow, we are off to Chek Jawa's neighbour, Pulau Sekudu (Frog Island).

Posts by others:
Chay Hoon, on her FB.
Ria - Soft coral garden at Chek Jawa
Jonathan, on his FB.