Shore Behind of Yok Poon Primary School (5)

May be, i won't be able to update this blog again for months ...
i will on the road again soon and this time, i do not know when i will come back home again.












Banded bead anemones in the rock crevices.
When out of water, they retract their tentacles and look like beads of jelly.
In the pool, they extend their tentacles and filter feed.













This is a community of sand bubble crabs.
This kind of small crabs eat the coating of detritus on the sand grains.
Processed sand is discarded in little balls.
The tongue structure of the crabs is actually on their legs.



This looks like an elbow crab to me, with its relatively longer pincers.
During the talk with Dr. Dan, he shared about how crabs mate. The male organ of crab will go into the female's body. They can mate for ten days and up to 12 hours continuously for a day. The male will inject around 2 little of sperm into the female!




Barnacle is crustacean, or in simple words, the relative of crabs.
To continue the sex story, barnacles have the longest pennis for animals, relatively to its body size.
They can switch from male to female or vice versa.



Venus clams are normally found under the rocks.
When i was young, picking clams at the shore is a kind of family activity and source of extra-dishes.



Limpet is a kind of snail with the shape like a hat.
They lift their shells and crawl around the rock to graze algae.



Top shells are abundant at the shore. They are a kind of snail which graze on algae.

Shore Behind of Yok Poon Primary School (4)

i always like to explore this this small island. Most part of the island is submerge during high tide and it is only accessible during low tide. This island is right behind of the school and when i was young, during the art lesson, the teacher even asked us to sketch it.



The red tall building is a Sungai Rengit Malay Primary School. Beside it, it is Yok Poon Primary School.

This Soneratia alba mangrove tree (Malay: Perepat) is almost and icon of this small island.
Its circular leaves may be eaten raw or cooked and the ripe fruits are edible.
It is the host tree of fireflies.







i found this red color nerite particularly beautiful.

Nerite is a kind of marine snail and it has one of the strongest shell structure.


































A beautiful blue hermit crab is hiding in the shell.
i used to think collecting shell at the beach is something romantic. :)
But since i become a nature guide, i realised that, shell collection is depriving hermit crabs from their houses.
At the same time, those shells selling by the shop is probably by first killing the snails first, in order to get their beautiful shells.
(Hermit crabs don't kill the snail in order to get the shells. They just used the one which is empty and suit to them.)
i remember Ria said something like: How long are you going to look at the thing if you bring it back home? 3 minutes? and then you just leave it there and eventually forgot all about it.
Then, why not do a good act to just leave the shell alone. A shell in good condition can become the house of a hermit crab and the broken shell eventually become the sand.



Onch is a kind of sea snail without a shell. Its thick skin prevent it from drying out.
It is so well camouflage with the similar skin color and texture with the rocks that, i almost step on this one.
It breathes air through its modified gills at its backside.





The left side is just a shell of an oyster while the right side is an oyster alive. i was actually surprised to find even one live oyster as the residents here are coming to the shore from time to time to harvest free seafood.
Oyster is a kind of soft body animals with 2 shells. They feed by filter the organic particles in the seawater during high tide.











These are my favorite animals at this shore.
They are colonial anemone. They are a kind of animals (not plant) with stinging cells like coral or jellyfish.
They get their food from photosynthesis of the algae living with them and filter feed organic particles in the seawater.

















The name of this snail is drill.
It gets it name from its way of feeding. It can use its tongue like structure to 'drill' a hole at barnacle to feed on it.
Its hatched eggs turned into purple color and the yellow color eggs are the unhatched one.

Others: Accommodation and Bicycle Rental

The New Immigration Building in Operation



General Election of Malaysia.
Different party flags by the bridge in Sungai Rengit town.



i feel like this blog is getting like a tourism site instead of about the seashore. :)
Hope the below information is helpful since some of you have been asking.
i have never ever use their service before, so i have no idea of the quality of the service and others.
If you intend to visit the town during weekend, it is better that you call them and make your reservation.
Try to speak in Mandarin or other Chinese dialects when you call.
By the way, i do not gain any benefits from putting up their name cards here. :)



Accommodation

Chop Let Seng is almost the first hotel (more to a motel) in the town.
The owner said, every room is with attached bathroom and TV.
Room for 2, RM 40
Room for 3, RM 50
Room for 4, RM 65

i have no idea on Seng Huat Hotel. But it has been there for a while too.

Hotel Hiap Hwa is kind of brand new. Started last year and managed by the family of the ex-village head. Simple room range from RM 68 - RM 108.
My sister's friends and family had stayed there last time and they said it was clean.

P/s: The town is so small that the location of these hotels is basically not an issue. These three can be reached in 3 or 3 minutes walk from each other.

Bicycle Rental

i asked some Singaporean cyclist who i saw in the bumb boat.
They said, they rented the bicycle at Changi for SGD 18, 2 days.
Just ask at the bicycle shops near to the hawker centre.

If you prefer to rent the bicycle in the town, call and make reservation.
Kwong Hwa Heng is near to the bridge and the rate is RM 14 for one whole day and RM 2 for an hour.
i have no idea on the condition of the bike.

Other alternative, call 07-8265888
This is another bike rental shop in the town.



Sea Almond tree. This one is near to the jetty. The branches look like a pagoda.
The fruits look like almond and the nuts are edible.
The leaves change color during dry season: Red, copper, gold.
Currently, this one looks red.
The tree Sheds all its leaves twice a year in January-February and July-August.



The new jetty. Going to complete soon.
There is a marina for the yachts, like the one in Tioman.



The new immigration and passenger waiting building.
It has not yet been completed completely, but already in operation.

Tanjung Pengelih Shore (1): 4Nov07

It was a pleasant surprised to see so many soldier crabs near to the jetty. Roy ( :P )said, there are 'tonnes' of soldier crabs at Cyrene Reef, Singapore. But Cyrene is patch reef and not as accessible. i have never seen the soldier crabs army before, so i think this is my birthday gift from the shore. :)



When the tide goes out, hoards of Soldier Crab emerge from their sandy burrows to ‘march’ across the sandy shore. Their ‘armies’ can range from a dozen individuals to hundreds, moving over the sand flats like an undulating carpet. (This is why they are called soldier crabs. They troop about in large numbers.)



Soldier Crabs are fascinating creatures to watch, as they swarm over the flats. Systematically, they pick up parcels of sand that are placed into their large and complex mouth-parts. The sand parcel is revolved around the mouth-parts where small pieces of organic matter are extracted and consumed, the sand-pellet is then dropped and the crab picks up another parcel of sand and the process is repeated. It is interesting to note that these crabs move forward on their stilt-like legs, not sideways like most crabs.



When disturbed, the crabs burrow sideways directly into the sand, a process that takes less than two seconds. Its bizarre to sit on a sand flat and watch a hundred crabs just disappear into the sand, then a couple of minutes later, they just pop up out of the sand and carry on feeding, a great anti-predator defence.



This is not a good picture...
Anyway, i think you can see a shrimp!
It hides under the rock and normally if you flip over a rock during low tide, you will see many life forms.
(Remember to flip back the rock gentlely after that.)

Shrimp are distinguished from the superficially similar prawns by the structure of the gills. There is, however, much confusion between the two, especially among non-specialists (like me :), and many shrimp are called "prawns" and many prawns are called "shrimp".
For most people, the difference between shrimp and prawns is based on size, with larger shrimp being called prawns.



A young Avicennia mangrove.
This fellow just simply grows too near to its mother tree and this could be a disadvantage to grow under the shade of the mother tree.
The pencil roots can be see clearly.
Since mangrove nud is poor in oxygen, the pencil roots help the tree to absob oxygen from the air.



i am not sure what kind of palm tree is this.
It grows by the coastal hill by the main road of jetty.



Unknown butterfly.
Take note with the shinning blue patch near to the edge of its wing.



An ant nest!

Sungai Rengit Mangrove and Festival: 7Oct07

Home sweet home! i have finally returned from my months of overseas trip. One of the good things about to travel is, i learn to appreciate what surrounding me and what i have. This is of course something that everyone said when they travel, but i can really feel this from the bottom my my heart now. If you have forgotten the last time you just look up to the sky and enjoy the sunset, then please do so. The purplish, orangish and reddish colors in the sky are just amazingly beautiful. You don't have to even go to the seaside to do so. Just look up eventhough you are in the bus or car!
Do enjoy the pictures below. These are some findings in my warmth hometown.



Near to the river mouth, this area used to be a rich mangrove. But nowadays, it left only a few mangrove trees and hardly even see the mud lobster mound.
We still got a fat monitor lizard though!



Monitor lizard eats insects, crabs, dead animals and anything it can catch. It 'smells' the air with its blue forked tongue to track down carrion and small animals.



Climber crab. It feeds on mangrove leaves and scavenge for meat.



Archerfish. It feed on insects near to the water surface. The interesting thing is, archerfishes have elongate mouths to forcefully pumped out water to knock down the insects near to the water surface. But they have to practise and learn to be accurate over time.



Needle fish. Normally found near to the water surface as it eats small surface-dwelling fishes. It has a pair o long jaws with sharp teeth.



Calyx of bakau, a kind of mangrove tree.



Monkeys are common along the river near to the mangrove. You can easily sighted one at Tanjung Pengelih Jetty.



Oysters and alive! Oysters are molluscs with two-part shell. They stick one of their shells firmly to the rock with a strong glue.



It was the 'birthday' of the guarding deity of my clan, "Sim" (沈). The Teochew chinese opera was one of the yearly events to celebrate the birthday of the deity. i was surprised to see the Chinese electronics sub-title by the stage. i almost feel like i am in Singapore Esplanade Theatre! :) Nowadays many young people are not able to speak or understand Chinese dialect, not even to mention be able to appreciate the opera. This sub-title was really useful for the young people to understand the performance.





Offerings to the deity.



Fire cracker!