25th July 2009, Saturday, 0800-0900

Date of study: 25 July 2009
Weather: Cloudy with drizzle
Time: 0800-0910
Tidal levels: -1.0

25 July was indeed a fulfilling day for our team!The tide was really low at -1.0m so we carried out Enhalus Acorodies monitoring for the first time ever 😀 When we arrived, we found that the gate to the beach was locked and we had to climb over the fence to reach the seagrasses ❤ Thankfully, we crept along the fence to the ramp and walked down safely. We are glad that no one  squished any Onchiidae in their expedition down the “Onchiidae Slope” (aka the inter-tidal zone where onchiidae can be seen during low tide).

We started measuring Enhalus plots from further out at sea and moving inwards towards the shore. We measured a total of 10 plots of Enhalus in 9 areas spread out randomly around the seagrass bed.  Hua Zhen became very excited upon counting 15  gastropods in the same Enhalus plot. Li Ying went in search of the inrolled leaf margins of the Enhalus as we had previously read about it online. This was a “putting-theory-into-practice” experience and we even took photos to show you! Please look at our photo collection at the end of this post for pictures we took from our trip but before that…..After finishing our Enhalus monitoring, we went in search of our quadrats which we use to track the growth of Thalassia. We were quite worried that they might had been removed by people or washed away by the waves.  We were estatic when we found them although they were covered in slimy mud. One of our tent pegs had been washed away too! -Two dollars floats away- We definitely can’t wait for another day with low tides so we can replace that tent peg and check the growth of our Thalassia plots. In about 2 months, the Thalassia cover in our plots had already grown by 30-40%.

There were also many other organisms we saw during this trip:

The dying crab which had 2 legs missing, presumely from a fight or attack

The red algae which was slimy to the touch.  Mr Lim told us it was covered in something similar to our mucus.

The remarkable inrolled leaf margins of the Enhalus! This makes it hard to tear the leaves.

Here are the rubbish we picked up along the beach and inside the sea. It weighed 11kg in total (shocking) and we appeal to beach-goers to dispose of your rubbish properly as they will endanger the lives of sea organisms.

Here’s a picture of our quadrat.

Thank you for supporting our project! Stay tuned for our updates from our future trips 😀

Hua Zhen, Li Ying
and Regina who was regretfully unable to join us during our visit.