Thursday, May 08, 2008

Magical Wonderland Cyrene



Truth be told, I'm a shore newbie. But after today's Cyrene baptism, I am proud to say that I've seen all manners of marine organism now.

As the sun rose over Cyrene, a new chapter of my life dawned. If my life was a book, the chapter would probably read "happy and exciting days". I've never seen so much, experienced so much, done so much all in 3 hours. Wearing my knees out was a mere pittance of a price to pay for such rich an experience.





I was tasked to walk around the perimeter of Cyrene today to map the outline of the patch reef. Along the way, I saw a stingray, possibly an eel and a dozen octopi that did not hesitate squirting in the water to warn the blind monkey that's about to step on their toes. I saw mushroom corals, giant boulder corals and all manner of color and size of soft corals bigger than my entirety. Meanwhile, a monkey was heard squealing and squeaking all the way from Bukom to Jurong Island.


I would never forget my first encounter with the stingray.

Monkey walk walk walk walk walk walk listening to the tiny beeps of her GPS receiver.

Suddenly, a flash of blue on the corner of her left eye.

"EEEEEEEEEEEK" squealed the Monkey

"EEEEEEEEEEEK" squeaked the stingray

Both ran off in opposite direction like headless chicken only to bump into yet more scarily big animals on the edge of the sea.


Sneaky reef crabs with threatening red eyes snapped away at my feet as Monkey leapt from rock to coral rubble. Eels and fishes dart away from the impending monkey foot of death. Nonetheless...

Perhaps it's because I had so many firsts on Cyrene in one morning that it's forever going down as the magical wonderland in my book.

Photos of Cyrene can be seen here.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Cyrene Carnival: Edition 3

This is yet another call for submission for Cyrene Blogging Carnival. The 3rd edition was supposed to be due last week but due to lack of submission, I was unable to find the time to hunt for blog posts floating out there.

Please do write about Cyrene and leave the link in my blog post or visit our Facebook Group "I want to go Cyrene Reef" and leave your blog post in the discussion boards.

Even if you have never been to Cyrene, do write about why you would like to go and you never know when you might get an invite from us to join us on our working trips!

2 comments:

Jeffrey said...

*You* are a shore newbie??! Duh!! :P

Monkey said...

i am a shore newbie... i just am very good at pretending that im not! :P