Horseshoe Crabs on Mandai Beach

We participated in a Horseshoe crab rescue with the Singapore Nature society on the northern tip of Singapore island this weekend.  You're looking across the beach (a.k.a. mud flat) and the Johor Straits to Malaysia.

 
 Horseshoe crabs have blue blood (copper based) and have been around over 450million years.  The spikes look a bit scary but they're completely harmless

The mud was sometimes calf deep and dive booties were a great asset

We collected over 700 crabs that were cataloged and released again.  Mostly we cut them free from old fishing nets and then removed the nets from the beach.

Also freed a few 'regular' crabs... they were a bit feistier!

Amazing how entangled some of the crabs were...

A lot of them had barnacles on them too (like the one in Jex's hand).

Bukit Timah Macaques

Bukit Timah is a small park adjacent to the large jungle and water reservoirs in the middle of Singapore island.  We spent a couple of hours here with a local biologist who described the long tailed macaque behaviors.  She was enamored with the troupe and told us great stories about them.  This group lives at the edge of the jungle and is quite used to humans so we were able to be within several feet without disturbing them. 

Juvenile running along a fence... there was a dog barking below so he was pretty quick!

Mature female.
 Rank is passed through the females so birthright rules. 

Grooming is the currency of macaques...  you pick my fleas and I'll get yours...

There were four of these little guys about 4-6 weeks old.  If you look closely you can see their 'double mohawks'

This female is grooming a mother in the hopes of holding her baby.  They all seem to love holding babies!

The mortality rate amongst the infants is about 40% despite the great care they receive. 

Snapped the shutter too late on this one... Kida and this juvenile were staring at each other for quite a while until he turned away and feigned disinterest.

Singapore National Day

August 9th is Singapore National Day and a big local holiday.  Turns out that all the fireworks, jets and helicopters with flags suspended below them (that we've seen from our balcony for the past 4 weeks) were not weekly events but practice sessions for the 'big day'

 

Every neighborhood has a similar banner and most apartments and all public buildings sport Singapore flags.

 

One of Bruce's associates took us all out on his boat to view the fireworks from the bay.  The ride out through the harbor was really cool... hundreds of tankers, tugboats and container ships interspersed with several other small crafts like ours.

Gardens by the Bay

Gardens by the Bay opened in 2012 and is a free botanical garden (except the covered domes on the left).  The 14 hectare site is built on reclaimed land, it filters water through cascading levels of plants and creates its own power from plant trimmings provided by the city of Singapore's street maintenance crews.

The metal structures in the center of the park are partially covered with vegetation and built to resemble trees.  Two of the tree-like towers are chimneys for a biomass generator that provides all the cooling and AC for the two covered domes that house flower and tropical gardens.

The central 'tree' has a restaurant in it's canopy

Each tree has botanical or park facts etched into the stone benches around the bases of the trees...hence our knowledge of the biomass generator

Biggest bee we've ever seen; about 2" long
Lucky they weren't aggressive as we followed
them around trying to capture 'the perfect photo'

Seven story waterfall within the tropical dome... so misty your hair
curls just walking out of the airlock.

 View down through the tropical layers



View up through the outdoor gardens to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  The infinity pool on the top floor (57 stories up) is a packed on the weekends.  The open air bar has a great view over downtown Singapore.

Scuba Vacation in Manado Indonesia

 It's a three hour flight to Manado across the South China Sea and Borneo to go diving in the Celebes Sea.  The dive sites in this area are ranked as some of the top in the world...woohooo!

 Jex and I drifting along a wall

Lionfish- showing off

Stonefish- don't want to step on this guy

Cuttlefish imitating stag coral

Brittlestar wrapped around soft coral

Clark's Anemone fish (clownfish) so protective of their 
anemone that they'll nip at you

Whitemouth moray...not very aggressive but 
intimidating looking

Scorpionfish have poisonous spines but if you carefully
approach and tickle them under the chin they quite
like it

Kida and Jex were initially intimidated by the 

backwards roll into the ocean and then quickly

became pros

The walls were covered in soft and hard corals

These triggerfish were so prolific that divers refer to some
divesites as 'fish soup'

Family photo in front of a giant clam... more family than clam!

 

The 'little things' were so detailed and alien looking that we would often spend minutes just staring at one spot or watching something move, disappear, contract or glow

On the roof of the boat, between dives, Kida taught the dive guides German in exchange for Indonesian.

The boat crew and dive guides were enamored with the little, talkative blond girl but were not sure what to do with the white giant.

Our hotel had a gorgeous pool and friendly service but it was built 20 years ago and the pool seems to be the only area that was maintained.  Everything else was a bit threadbare and partially operational but it was a perfect dive hotel

We saw lots of fishing boats while out diving and I loved this one that appeared to have a sail made of old plastic sacks sewn together.  The fisherman always had a friendly wave or smile.

We saw many green sea turtles but this was the only one with accompanying sharksuckers... and a Kida too!