110901-02 Sultan Shoal

Got quite lucky to be able to take a look at Sultan Shoal during a low tide period, thanks to the extreme generosity of my cousin. However even at 0.2m, it was not low enough to get to the reef edge. Perhaps -0.2m or lower is needed, I think. The area outside the rock wall is one continuous ring of rocks, very slippery and hard to navigate.

Explored outside the sea wall on the first day.


A section of the rocky area outside the seawall was infested with these 2 cm long red sea cucumbers.


There were some greenish ones as well, not sure if they're the same thing.


Orange cucumarid cucumber.


Giant topshell (Trochus niloticus).


Muricid snail (Thais bitubercularis?).


Nerite (Nerita chamaeleon?).



Australium calcar.


Eriphia ferox.


No idea what crab this is. About 6 mm carapace.





Strange mushroom coral siamese twins.


Psammocora and Pavona.



Trachyphyllia?


Favid coral. This was the most common hard coral family I saw.


Some sort of fungid coral?


Turbinaria.


Galaxea.


Soft coral next to some zoanthids.




Some of the leathery soft coral seemed to have parts sheared off. Been fed on by something?



More leathery soft coral.



This leathery soft coral had many brittle stars on it, some white some red.


There was a small patch of a few Heteractis magnifica.



No idea what these are (anemones, coral, corallimorphs??). Can see at least 3 mouths in the bottom photo so it looks like they grow together.


Many Phymanthus anemones.



Besides the shore, I also had time to look over the grass and plants.




Mushrooms.


A small patch of grass had many lesser grass blues. I noticed that some of the resting ones seemed to be continuously bothered by incoming ones, the butterflies were all looking for mates. I decided to camp there.



After the abdomens connected, the butterflies stayed put and allowed me to get quite close. Kinda freaky.


My 7 year old nephew spotted this rather interesting wasp (1 cm long). Its wings were folded like a damselfly.



The rock wall itself was full of salticids.


A giant ship which, to my amazement, I failed to even notice when I was taking this shot, so intent was I on closing in on the white collared kingfisher.


Heavily cropped shot from my D10 pns camera. These kingfishers had a minimum approach of about 15-20 m.



Took a look at the lagoon on the second day.

Thalamita sp..


Periophthalmus chrysospilos.


The same strange blue spotted goby I saw previously at Semakau.


A pair of head-stripe gobies (Amblygobius stethophthalmus) were digging a nest in between some flat rocks. Unfortunately my flash disturbed them.


Many small black sea cucumbers (Afrocucumis africana) under a rock.


This was the only onch I saw, crawling on the lagoon wall.


The steps of the lagoon had many of these Planaxis sulcatus snails.



Wandering cowrie (Cypraea errones).


A sea turtle that surfaced right beside the jetty! My cousin spotted it on the other side of the jetty some time later.


My sister later spotted it again at the same spot my cousin last saw it. We decided to camp for it and it surfaced one more time after about 30-45 min. However that was the last time it decided to show itself to us and we never managed to see it again.



According to a friendly boatman, Sultan Shoal (red circle) used to be an excellent fishing ground until the wall to its west was built. It is an extremely tiny patch of land about 400 ft by 200 ft.


It has one large berthing jetty


and two fishing jettys.




Some customary shots of the lighthouse.


The holiday chalets were really good. There was a full kitchen, BBQ pit, external gutting sink and table and a washing point for sandy boots.



The water visibility was pretty good, despite it being smack in the middle of a heavily used ship berthing area.


The awesome boat that sped from west coast pier to Sultan Shoal in about 45 min.