Plan: Explore the waters off Changi Beach

Changi beach: a place where NUS students visit for their LSM1103 practical, where what they learned from lecture comes to life. Last week, when they were having their field trips, some students got into the water with the nets and managed to catch up to 10 species of organisms before releasing them back into the wild.



This brought back fond memories when I was there 2 years ago learning about biodiversity. I was one of those who volunteered to get wet. Before getting into the water, I was skeptical that we could net anything in such murky waters, but I proceeded on with the ‘motion’ anyway. After dragging the net over a distance of about 20m ( if I remembered correctly), we pulled the net up the shore. To my amazement, we netted many different species of ‘underwater creatures’ from the Subtidal zone! This totally changed my perspective of the wildlife diversity in the waters off Changi beach.

Likewise, I believe that this field trip has done similar magic to the cohort of yr1s who visited Changi beach last Friday where they caught animals like:
· Baby solefish
· Pipefishes
· Crescent Perch
· Filefishes
· Baby butterflyfish
· Scorpionfish
· Rabbit fish
· Spider crab (Phylum Arthropoda: Sub-phylum Crustacea)
· Seahorses
· Ctenophores (phylum Ctenophora)

Such sightings indicated that our local waters do indeed have RICH DIVERSITY OF MARINE LIFE and thus dispels the statement that “the waters in Singapore are so murky that there is nothing alive down there." And who knows, unidentified species of marine creatures are dwelling in our murky waters. Afterall, we are ‘located within one of the few epicenters of marine biological diversity in the world’.

Now that we have found many animals swimming off the shores of Changi beach, curiosity is raising within me if there are sessile creatures growing on its seabed. If there is, how rich is its diversity? Thus, the CRAZY MAN is planning to dive off Changi beach next Friday (26th Oct 2007), to know more about ‘Life on the seabed off Changi beach’.

However, due to safety reasons, I will NOT dive alone, after-all I am not compromising my professionalism as a PADI divemaster (I am talking crap, but true though). So, I am inviting divers who are interested to discover what lies beneath to join me in this adventure. Also, for further safety, I am also looking for someone to do a look-out from the land as well (as shown in pic on the right).

If interested, please e-mail me at justinsng@yahoo.com.

“One must get past this self-imposed mental block that there is nothing in Singapore waters and look! Only then will nature open itself up to our eyes.” - Chua Sek Chuan, Nature watch

Here are some of the some of the essential information for that particular dive.

Planned time of day: Afternoon
Tide: Low tide

References:

Seahorse surprise last Friday. NUS Module Blogs, LSM1103 BIODIVERSITY. Retrieved on 2007-10-19. <http://moduleblog.nus.edu.sg/blogs/lsm1103/archive/2007/10/17/seahorse-surprise-last-friday.aspx>

Abigayle Ng on Changi's marine life and links to find out more.NUS Module Blogs, LSM1103 BIODIVERSITY. Retrieved on 2007-10-19. <http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/pub/naturewatch/text/a083a.htm>

Marine biodiversity. National University of Singapore. Retrieved on 2007-10-19. <http://www.tmsi.nus.edu.sg/research/mb2.htm>

Tide Times For Singapore. National Environment Agency. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
<http://app.nea.gov.sg/cms/htdocs/article.asp?pid=2293>