Sentosa (12 Jun 2013)

How are the seagrasses doing on Sentosa? Particularly after the installation of the massive blue drums as part of a 'security barrier'.

I had a quick look as part of TeamSeagrass monitoring of this shore.


In some parts of the shore, there was quite a bit of seagrasses, even near large pieces of rubbish like tyres.

Oh dear, I came across many patches of Tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) that have their leaf blades 'cropped' so that they stick out of the water.

Not all of Tape seagrass was cropped though. There were also many clumps that were still nice and long.

I came across some small patches of Spoon seagrasses (Halophila ovalis) that were severely bleached. Most of the green stuff (chlorophyll) was lost, leaving only a green outline and green mid-rib on a transparent leaf.

Here's my attempt at a close up in very windy water.

It was heartening to see several clumps of Tape seagrasses producing many young female flowers.

It was a very windy day, in high water, with lots of waves from passing high-speed boats. Monitoring alone, I had to step on the transect so it wouldn't move. Needless to say, the transect photo shots were very poor.

Here's a look at some of the seagrasses I saw today.

Today I had my first personal close up look at the the blue drums that rests on the shore at low tide. These are part of a floating 'security barrier' installed in 2012. Pei Yan also blogged about these barriers in April 2012.

This last stretch of natural shore on Sentosa lies near the massive Pasir Panjang Container Terminal reclamation project, which can be seen on the horizon.

TeamSeagrass monitoring will hopefully allow us to better understand the impacts of these on our seagrasses and our shores.