Coral bleaching situation at Terumbu Pempang Laut

Recently, the tropical region is on high alert on coral bleaching as the water temperature in this region is getting warmer.

Here is the bleaching alert of Singapore and her neighbouring waters from Coral Reef Watch.

Bleaching alert in the Southeast Asia region
[Image from Coral Reef Watch]

From the image, Singapore is located in middle of a Watch zone and Alert Level 1 zone.

My first visit to Terumbu Pempang Laut

It has been about 3 months since I last did an amphibious landing on our intertidal shores. The previous trip was to Pulau Semakau to check on the oil spill situation during the Lunar New Year. Today, we are doing an amphibious landing on one of the terumbus we have in Singapore. Terumbu refers to submerged reef. During high tide, it looks no different from any sea surface. The reef is being submerged. However, during the period of low spring tide, the tide falls below the reef, exposing the reef. It looks as though a piece of land has emerged from the sea and sank back a few hours later.

So where exactly is Terumbu Pempang Laut? Take a look at this google map image by Ria Tan.

Image from Ria Tan.

From the image, you can see that Terumbu Pempang Laut is the furthest submerged reef northwest of Pulau Hantu. This is my first time visiting this reef. I have yet to visit Terumbu Pempang Tengah and Terumbu Pempang Darat.