Chek Jawa (27 Jun 09)

Bright and early this morning, we're back on Chek Jawa to see how things are growing there.
Chek Jawa sure looks nice in what promises to be a scorching day. The mangroves that ring the seagrass meadows are glowing in the morning sun.
The boardwalk has lots of interpretive panels including one about the seagrass meadows.
The panel is located near what is probably our best growth of Smooth ribbon seagrasses (Cymodocea rotundata). And today, they seem to have grown over a larger area.
They sure look well, even looking down from the tall boardwalk.
The Team makes its way to the shore via the pontoon which reaches out into the seagrass meadows.
And we've got our spiffy "Seagrass Monitoring in Progress" banner up to tell visitors what we're doing and how they too can join us to make a difference for our shores!
Down a ladder and we're off to monitor. Here's the team starting on their trek to the far off site on the Northern sand bar.While here's the team doing the site nearer the boardwalk.
While they are busy monitoring, I take the opportunity to check out the coral rubble area near the Chek Jawa beacon. Wow, it sure is very grassy!
With lots of Fern seagrasses (Halophilia spinulosa), Needle seagrass (Halodule sp.) and Spoon seagrasses (Halodule ovalis).
The seagrasses are thick all the way from the sand bar near the beacon to the high shore near the boardwalk.
The pools were full of seagrasses!
In some parts though, the Fern seagrasses seem to have lost their leaflets, leaving just the stems.
And along the sandbar, I came across one lonely clump of Tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides).
Also on the sand bar, in the thick carpet of grass was an odd wiggly bare patch. Could it be a dugong feeding trail?
I saw lots of other marine life on the coral rubble area. More about this on the wild shores of singapore blog.

I caught up with the Team as they were washing up the gear. It's important to do this, even though we are all feeling very hot and tired by now.
And the Singapore Poly Water Quality team is busy catching up on their water samples.
As we waited to go home, it started to drizzle. And it poured by the time we were heading back on the bumboats! How fortunate that we managed to get our work done before the weather turned.

The team today included: Kenerf, Charmaine, Joo Yong, Yen-ling, Sam Lai, Jason, Chay Hoon, Cornie, Liu Jia, Chi Keung, Lee Qi, Siti, Wei Ling, Robin and Ria. And from Singapore Poly, Chen Ko, nUaN qIn, Joycelyn, Suzanna.

More about the Water Quality Team's experience of Chek Jawa on Checking out Chek Jawa by Chen Ko on his Water Quality in Singapore blog.