Jul 10, 2005

Feeling sluggish

Sigh... back to the concrete jungle tomorrow to take on my weekday role of city slugger. But before that, a re-cap of this weekend and the drama leading up to it. Cheh, cheh, cheh! The camp-over on Kusu that was not to be...

The original plan was training on Labrador yesterday morning, followed by camping over on Kusu for training this morning.

Last week, I already had most of my barang-barang ready liao.

See! Doreen even bought tea-light candle lanterns, one each for us both. Then see! Got 2 bottles of really good wine some more, one old world and one new world for variety.

Regular drystores like tuna, baked beans, etc, and apples, and lots more that was either in the fridge or that I was planning to buy & prepare by Friday.

Sigh...tak jadi. At least the tuna went to good use, to feed trainers & trainees...

So Saturday 9th July: Training at Labrador Beach, 6.00am - 8.30am. After a couple of pre-dawn 'hiccups', I made my way to Labrador Park, entertained by a very informative cab driver who seemed to find pleasure in telling me about all the different ghost sightings and stories around Singapore.

Girl going to Labrador by herself at 5.45am - he probably thought I was with the Singapore Paranormal Investigators lah.

And this was hanging in his cab. I thought, hey! Must be a sign of what's to come huh...

"Taxi uncle" was really sweet and took his time to drive away from Carpark B 'cos he didn't believe me when I said my "friends" were already there waiting for me.

Eventually, the others started arriving and we started our walk/training at around 6 plus. No sea horses though. But man! It was sea slug day!


First it was 2 sea hares (Aplysia dactylomela) trying to get it on. And we were all like Wah! Wah!

Photo by Yvonne M.

Then, 2 tiny nudibranchs (Pteraeolidia ianthina), already getting it on.

Photo by Yvonne M.

Then! Grandfather of all sea hares (probably too bored to get it on)! Grandpa Aplysia was huge!

After that, we spotted Grandma Aplysia (probably looking for new blood 'cos grandfather was too boring), but by then, everyone was like "oh another sea hare" and walked on.

We also studied a carpet anemone that housed a pair of anemone shrimp, many green branching anemone, plus neon green & black striped and white & brown striped ones. Zoanthids of various colours, ascidians, purple climber crabs, snapping shrimps, hermit crabs, hard corals, sponges, a wide array of seagrass & seaweed varieties, crab moults, featherduster worms, periwinkles and more.

We ended the training by watching onchs crap, trying to peel open a nipah palm fruit, and of course, with our newly imposed 'orientation rites' for all trainees... Overall, the training session went really well and trainees seemed pretty happy & enthusiastic (I hope!).

The training at Sentosa today didn't prove as fruitful as yesterday's, but since only 4 trainees attended today's session, we got to move around quite a bit. Although the water here was much clearer for spotting what I term "thingies", the tide wasn't too good and didn't stay out for too long. Highlight of the day was a really huge bristleworm (Chloeia sp.)! Ok, everything seems huge to me, but I have small expectations lah. Some from Pam's group of photographers spotted Eunice who was a little shy today. Apart from creepie crawlies, we studied more seagrass and an amazing variety of seaweed, a few leathery soft corals, brown sponges, hard corals, ascidians, colonial anemone, branching anemone, hairy crabs, barnacles, limpets, periwinkles, turban snails, onchs, sea slaters and the other common shore critters.

Branching anemone (Actinodendron cf. plumosum)

All the other interesting creatures were probably sunbathing in Kusu wondering why I stood them up. Sigh...

So all in all, we're really glad the trainees made the effort to attend the training sessions, and on my part, I hope my casual, not-scientifically-proven, chin-chai way of explaining things or constantly saying "I oso dunno" didn't turn you off. What to do... I also never go to skool!

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Mahatma Gandhi

4 comments:

greengardn said...

How come we can't see the list of all the Blog members ah? Floggie sayang, who r u?

MS said...

I think it's fun to find out who's who on KLOG.. After all only invited members can klog so I guess that's not too hard...

Bernie, let's put on the names of those harey and sluggish creatures.. Being informative and accurate is useful for the learning of new guides

greengardn said...

Ok ok... Looked at pictures of sea hares until "mata juling" already. I'm sure it's Aplysia dactylomela now.

Floggie is Freddy? Who else has been away... Jani? I think maybe easier to identify 'em slugs than blogger identities now.......

greengardn said...

Ahsoneh.... Frog imported straight from Washington. Welcome back!