hello!!! today i went for this semakau inter-tidal walk in semakau island.

A real must-go!!! Early in the morning, 4am, i woke up...

cos we gotta report there at 4.45 am to catch the low tide!! My mum,

my brother malcolm and i went. There, we were introduced to our

tour guide for the day, Kok Sheng. We were grouped with another family,

and together with several other groups (including a very 'high' one ),

boarded the boat departing to Semakau landfill island.

The boat was FREEZING; i nearly died cos the air con was super cold!!

i had to hug my haversack, crawl behind the curtain and put the

brochure over my head to keep warm! :) i slapt most of the journey.

When we arrived there it was still dark- 6 plus only mah!!!

half of s'pore still sleeping, i bet.

*That's me pointing to the sign. My mum made me do so :D*

After a toilet trip, we set off to the beach are.

We walked along this endless road stretch that seemed to go on forever.

Slowly we watched the sun rise- no need for the torchlights!

Then our tour guide briefed us a little on the dos and don'ts, and we went in!!

We were told to walk fast cos of mosquitos. mum and i

sprayed the repellent like mad all over-guess we are equally paranoid...

and we din get bitten! Soon we were out of there.

The tour guide said we might see mosquitos following us behind

but i din dare to look!! :)

For the 1st part, there were corals. I was fascinated by the

different kinds of species. We saw fiddler crabs

(who escaped as abruptly as it had come into sight)

and many other interesting marine life living in the tidal pools.

Next we went to the seagrass lagoon. Time to get wet!

The water level was nearly knee-deep and the water was freezing.

We saw this long snake-like sea cucumber and lots of tape seagrass.

After the seagrass lagoon, we stepped upon relatively dry land again.

this time, STARFISH infested the place! There were starfish

marks everywhere, and one had to be careful and check that it was

just a starfish mark, not the ACTUAL starfish itself X-)

Then we went about looking for orange flags, which marked the

place of an interesting creature, as well as keeping an eye out for

other marine life that were worth taking repeated glances at.

*That's a knobbly sea star! CUTE???*

There were many things that i didn't expect to see, like jellyfish

(1st time seeing life ones, looked so cute though) and an octopus

(the clever creature escaped...) and a seahorse (We spotted one

but when our guide tried to grab hold of it, it scurried away..)

I learnt about hard and soft corals ( and HDB flats) and about

hairy crabs, fat pulsing sea cucumbers and slimy anemone.

*The jellyfish. Not a good shot of it though but.. good enough*

*My mum and i love this shot... so peaceful and serene...

hey how about we donate this picture to put on postcards

promoting the inter-tidal walks or on websites?? haha.*

By 9, the tide was slowly coming in, so we had to go. The

heat from the sun had made us hot and sweaty and abit

giddy. i was glad when i was time to trudge back... mum

was half dead, i was becoming black... We went to the southern

most part of the island, which has the perfect scenery.

*ME... don't i look like i am enjoying a wonderful holiday in Bali??

a cocktail's missing tho.*

Yea. Then we went to watch a video about landfills, and we

took a boat back. This boat ride was much more enjoyable than the prev...

It was great fun!!! I dun mind going again...

Ok. gotta go.