KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – The tanker Bunga Kelana 3 was carrying light crude oil and condensate when it was involved in a collision with a bulk carrier in waters between Malaysia and Singapore waters early on Tuesday, a spokesman for vessel owner AET said.
“The Bunga Kelana 3 is a vessel owned and managed by AET. At the moment she is now safely at anchor off Changi,” Paul Lovell, head of corporate communication atf AET, told Reuters. Changi is located in the east of Singapore.
“She was carrying two types of cargo, some condensate and some very light crude, it was about 40 percent condensate and about 60 percent light crude on the vessel at the time of the incident. It looks though the spill would have been from the very light crude, the exact amount I can’t tell you,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »
May 25 (Bloomberg) — A tanker collided with a bulk carrier off Singapore’s southeastern coast, spilling 2,000 metric tons of crude oil near the world’s busiest port.
The MT Bunga Kelana 3 tanker collided with the MV Waily at about 6:10 a.m. local time in the Singapore Strait, 13 kilometers (8 miles) southeast of Changi East, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said in a statement. About 140,000 vessels call at Singapore each year, it said on its website. The city-state is also Asia’s biggest center for oil storage and bunkering. Read the rest of this entry »
May has been an intense month for a lot of people in Asia, and for the oceans as well. But it’s also been an exciting time for biodiversity with World Biodiversity Day and the exhibition of wonderful images of wildlife in Singapore in the heart of Singapore’s shopping district.
Taking a break from the perpetual hustle that goes on in Singapore, Blog divers retreated to the depths of Pulau Hantu, and this weekend, or volunteer Cindy Tan, “breaks her jinx” as she says, when she spots her first Slender Ceratosoma nudibranch! After which, she spots another 4 more, for a total of 5 of this bizarre and beautiful marine slugs!
While sticking her nose about the reef, she managed to find a bunch of egg capsules belonging to a Spiral melongena snail.
She also encountered a little cuttlefish on the reef. Check out how its colouration matches the portion of the reef it is hovering over, almost perfectly!
Then there was a not-so-little cuttlefish. From this angle, you can clearly see the unique W-shaped pupils that cuttlefish have.
When I first saw this photo, it seems as if a single looong nudibranch has coiled itself around this bit of coral. Of course, anyone who’s seen this nudi before knows that they don’t get THIS long. At least, that’s as far as it has been recorded! So what appears to be one, is in fact two sea slugs, chasing each others tails around a coral branch.
Despite the showers we’ve been having on the mainland, our Sunday was not only fair and sunny, it was also, relatively silt-free! That translates to: The visibility was great! Well, it wasn’t as good as it gets, but we were pleasantly surprised when as we descended into the brightly-lit waters of Hantu today. The allied shrimp in the seafan was one of the things we spotted on the first dive. Read the rest of this entry »
While I was away from Singapore, Hantu Blog volunteers didn’t stop at what they were passionate about; they continued to dive at Hantu with friends and strangers alike, educating them about the life on local reefs and taking some incredible pictures like the one above of an Aeolid feeding. Read the rest of this entry »
S.O.S. stands for “save our Seahorses”, a non-profit group dedicated to saving the seahorse – a flagship creature is popularly known for.
This marine handbook is a testament to to Sungai Pulai’s intriguing biodiversity, and the Hantu Blog is proud to have been able to contribute photos of marine life from Singapore for this effort!
The book is authored by Choo Chee Kuang, Serina Rahman, and Khor Hui Min.
I was told by a former resident of Hantu Island, that it got its name, which translates as “Ghost Island” in Malay, from of the calls of fishing owls that used to reside in the island’s mangrove trees several decades ago, before the island was manicured to its present state. The Malay name for owls being Burung hantu, meaning “Ghost bird”. Read the rest of this entry »
False scorpionfish Centrogenys vaigiensis are commonly encountered on Singapore’s reefs. What tickled me about this particular encounter was that this particular individual must be the smallest of its species I have ever come across! Looking exactly like a miniature version of its adult counterparts, this tinsy fella squeezed itself at the base of a pink sponge, and appeared rather unsettled when it realised that it’d been discovered. Anyone who’s photographed an adult C. vaigiensis will be able to tell you that these guys, like the large reef cuttlefish, tend to prefer to remain still and trust their camouflage, than move and risk exposing themselves to danger/predators. Obviously this little guy has got a lot to learn! Being this tiny, it’d make a good snack for any carnivorous fish on the reef. Best be still buddy!
Divers at Pulau Hantu encountered several reef cuttlefish last Sunday – from large rugby ball-sized reef monsters, to pinkie nail-sized critters like the one above, which were almost invisible. The large ones appear much more confident on the reef, keeping still when approached, seemingly unfazed by us curious divers. The smaller ones on the other hand put on all sorts of interesting displays in what may be an attempt to confuse or frighten us away. They only end up fascinating us further.
Picture quality isn’t good but what happened after this photo was interesting…
The crab stuck its claw at the ray’s eye (or the space beneath it), then the ray started jerking around… but cos we were “blocking” the way, the poor ray could not escape and ended up thrashing about even more until we backed out and it “ran” away…
May 26, 2010 
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