Pulau Semakau

The day started really early at 3+ in the morning when most of us woke up to get ready for our first ever marine biology field trip to Pulau Semakau. Reaching school before 4.30am, all of us were really excited while waiting for the bus to come and bring us to the pier. Finally the bus came and our journey there was actually pretty noisy with all the excitement.

The weather was quite windy and it was drizzling as well. Being at the pier, the winds were super chilly and cold, with droplets of water splashing on us. Our guide, Mindy brought us to a corner to seek for some shelter while waiting for our boat to arrive. She gave us a brief introduction about herself as well as the landfill island we were about to go to, and also gave us group badges. We were called the 'Sotongs'!

The boat ride was initially very shaky. The currents and winds were rather strong. It was also Ali's first boat ride, which made him quite sea-sick. However, the 5 of us, with some other friends chatted throughout the journey there, which honestly actually prevented some of us from puking all over the place.

Reached the island at around 7.10am? The sun was already rising and we had to walk 2km on the road to get to the entrance of the mangrove leading towards the intertidal area and hence these photos :D These are just a small fraction of the photos though~ haha

Reached the entrance and we all changed to our booties (if we had them) and sprayed insect repellent everywhere....for mainly the girls. Since it was raining before we reached there, there was a tree that fell over and blocked the pathway so we had an obstacle! It was really muddy inside there and it was best to not stay put, since the countless thirsty mosquitoes there were attacking us every second. Some of the guys squished the mosquitoes when they were sucking their blood so the mosquitoes' blood were splattered all over their legs omg.

Reached the intertidal area!

Well what we did after reaching the intertidal area is I guess, pretty much self-explanatory haha we saw so many marine animals and snapped so many photos. Our guide also told us so much about them! The sun was really pretty too, with the nice sceneries :)) This was a first time experience for many of us going for an intertidal walk and the number of marine organisms we saw was overwhelming. This was nothing like going to the zoo or the birdpark as we were up close to the organisms so we could touch and feel them xD There were so many organisms we have never encountered in our lives before namely starfish, nudibranches, hermit  crabs, etc. It was genuinely an enriching and unique 1st time experience for the five of us students.

307! xD

Left the intertidal area and took a shuttle bus to the end of the island to know more about it's history. So many mosquitoes followed us in! We were like trying to kill all of them throughout the ride..

Group photo in the order of the rainbow! :D

After eating some snacks and resting, we went back to the place we all came from and explored the landfill, in the bus of course haaha we did get to sniff the air outside for a few seconds though!

Took the boat back to mainland and bus back to school, concluding the field trip! It was really really fun and enjoyable. It was a really great and interesting experience for us all, going to an island that Singapore owns early in the morning, wearing booties for the first time, seeing so many different marine animals for the first time and so much more!! We really liked this field trip and learnt so much from it. All of us were super tired after it though! Slept a lot after reaching home haha :D

In this field trip we really learnt so much about the island itself as well as Singapore. It's the only landfill island in the world and it belongs to Singapore. Without going there, we'd probably still think that it's a filthy island with all the waste there since it is after all, a landfill. It's really clean there and the weather's nice and cool. It's an island full of purpose and use. Honestly, some of us didn't even know the existence of this island or how it came about. I certainly did not know it existed and that it's actually a combination of more than one island, with artificial land. It's predicted to last until 2045. That's 33 years more. However, with the ever-growing population of Singapore, I doubt it can last that long. Singapore is really, really tiny and the population just keeps increasing.

We have learnt that organisms have interesting habits and modes of reproduction in the wild. Little did we know that hemaphroditism was so common in  the wild and there was such a bizarre reproduction technique called "penis fencing". Two organisms would fight with their penises and the loser whose penis drops off first would become the female and the victor would become the male. Obviously the organisms would want to win and become the male as it is less time and energy consuming. This reproduction trait really intrigued us.

We have also learnt that marine organisms thrive anywhere, not just in the deep blue sea. We thought that most marine organisms could only be found down in the depths of the ocean but we were so wrong. There was a great diversity of organisms in the shoreline too. And its the shoreline of a landfill! After this experience, we cant wait to visit other shorelines like Pulau Hantu and St John's especially, since it is a rocky shore so the diversity of organisms will be quite different from the sandy shorelines of Pulau Semakau and Pulau Hantu.