Recce at Labrador shore

It's been almost 2 years since I last visited Labrador beach! My last post on Labrador showcased the numerous fishes that were around the shore... The shore was very much prettier and had more life on the coral rubble zone.

Today, thanks to Samantha, a graduate student who is studying rocky shore diversity, I was able to visit the shore again. I was tasked to help Siti with her seagrass work. The first thing I saw on the shores were large pieces of man-made debris such as these shown in the photos...



Further around the area, I saw some abandoned PVC pipes, thrash such as shoes, plastics, stone slabs, and many other variety of thrash that you can think of... Sigh! It's was heart-breaking to see that the upper shore was badly littered with thrash and concretes.

The shore was relatively quiet, with several scurrying swimming crabs and snapping shrimps. I saw no fishes this time round... Upper shore was almost bare! Thankfully, towards the deeper waters, we started to see the algae, zoanthids and seagrass patches!

Here shows a pretty algae - Big parasol green seaweed (Caulerpa peltata). This seaweed is not very common on our shores, and Labrador is one of those places that has these seaweed.


Here's Siti and her student, Benjamin taking a closer look at the seagrass patch near the rocks... Labrador is a very special seagrass site - it is the only mainland shore that has Sickle seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii)! Besides that, the shore also has the tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) and Spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis)...


Here's a portion of the exposed seagrass patch. Pretty isn't it? Unlike someone who thinks it's 'unimportant' *ahem*, these seagrass beds play important nurseries for many of the little fishes and crustaceans, and serve as food for animals such as the turtles and dugongs!


An interesting observation! It appears to me that the tape seagrass recently released its gametes! Here shows a male flower (on the ground) that is already emptied. The spawning could have occurred over the last two days when the tides were out! The first time I saw the tape seagrass gamete release was in Bintan! We all thought that someone decided to throw styrofoam! :P


Siti later found the female flowers that has likely been fertilized and many have fallen out already... Here's one of them... Amazing plants isn't it? Another interesting fact about the seagrasses is that it's the only marine flowering plant! :D A good reason to keep them, they are the grasses of our sea gardens!


Tides were switching from morning to the evening timings. I later saw the tides rushing up the shore as we were departing. Right before we left, Siti pointed out the dredging operations carried out. It looked horrible to me! Monster arms grabbing substrate and pouring into the barges... >:(


Because of such operations, it largely affects the silty waters around Labrador and increased sedimentation... Today I did not see any corals (probably because it's in the deeper waters)... As we headed back, I remembered this mural of "Please conserve our rich marine life heritage"...


Interestingly, someone on the trip asked me, "How long will Labrador be around?" I couldn't really give an answer... Hopefully for a long time... :)