An early Christmas present – the wonderful combination of colours that painted this morning’s sky, taken at 6.47 am from the Beaulieu Jetty at Sembawang Park. The view is of the Tebrau Strait towards Pasir Gudang in Johor on the left of the photograph and the former Kampong Wak Hassan on the right – where the silhouettes of two tower cranes can be seen. The area of the former seaside kampung is where luxury homes are currently being built.
Colours of the morning, 23 Dec 2017, 6.47 am.
Reflections at dawn, Kallang River, 6.54 am, 16 June 2017.
Kallang River, 6.54 am, 16 June 2017.
A collection of 51 photographs taken at sunrise that show that the north may have some of the best spots in Singapore to greet the new day.
Sunrise, Selat Tebrau (Straits of Johor), 6.54 am, 16 April 2016.
Sunrise over Beaulieu Jetty, 6.41am, 7 May 2016.
Through the trees at Gambas Avenue, 7.08 am, 18 February 2012.
Greeting the new day, Sembawang Park, 17 April 2016.
Silhouettes at Kampong Wak Hassan, 6.35 am, 25 May 2014.
The angry sky over Beaulieu Jetty, 6.55 am, 16 April 2016.
Sunrise, through the incoming Sumatras, 6.30 am, 28 May 2016.
Colours of the forgotten shore, 6.47 am, 24 July 2013.
A sunrise through the storm, 7.09 am, 9 June 2013.
Solitude, Kampong Wak Hassan, 22 May 2013.
The rising sun over the strait, 7.11 am, 30 March 2013.
Over the strait, 6.41am, Christmas Day 2014.
Colours of the morning, Lower Seletar Reservoir, 6.34 am, 18 December 2013.
Colours of the morning, Kampong Tengah, 6.55 am 30 March 2013.
Rising of the sun, the straits, 7.00 am, 31 May 2013.
Colours after the storm, 6.43 am, 9 October 2013.
Light through the darkness, 7.03 am, 18 August 2013.
The early harvest, 6.47 am, 2 May 2013.
The seawall, 7.02 am, 2 February 2013.
The rising sun over Pasir Gudang, 6.58 am, 21 November 2013.
Light rays, 6.50 am, 24 June 2012.
Dark and light, 6.45 am, 7 June 2014.
Walking on water, 6.44 am, 14 June 2014.
First light, the forgotten shore, 6.25 am, 15 June 2014.
Red clouds over the straits, 6.55 am, 22 June 2012.
The rising sun through the haze, 7.09am, 21 June 2012.
Morning glow, 7.19 am, 22 December 2012.
Sunrise over Mandai, 6.51 am, 3 October 2013.
Colours of the new day, 6.54 am, 5 June 2014.
The bench, 6.45 am, 7 June 2014.
The bench, 6.31 am, 8 June 2014.
The incoming tide, 7.14 am, 14 June 2014.
Happy campers at sunrise, 6.45 am, 19 June 2014.
A pastel shaded morning, 6.22 am, 31 May 2014.
The cyclist, 6.38 am, 30 May 2015.
The fisherman, 6.36 am, 5 June 2015.
The finger pier, Sembawang Shipyard, 6.41am, 9 June 2015.
Pretty in pink, 6.22am, 1 June 2015.
On the jetty, 6.52 am, 28 February 2015.
The beach, 6.22 am, 28 March 2015.
Tossing the trap, 7.02 am, 1 March 2015.
The last trees of the Sungei Seletar mangrove forest, 7.06 am, 26 May 2016.
Dreamy morning, 6.39 am, 24 November 2014.
Three’s company, 6.36 am, 13 November 2014.
The sun rises on a changing landscape, 6.52 am, 30 October 2014.
The new world, 6.55 am, 21 November 2014.
Bubu man, 6.49 am, 13 November 2014.
The rising sun, 6.50 am, 24 November 2014.
Play, 6.53 am, 24 November 2014.
Under the clouds, 22 November 2013.
Over the last forested hill, 9 July 2016, 6.24 am.
Sitting in relative isolation and surrounded by a lush forest of greenery for much of the 76 years of its existence, Old Admiralty House may soon find itself in less than familiar settings. The National Monument, built as a home away from home for the officer in command of the British Admiralty’s largest naval base this side of the Suez, will soon find itself become part of Sembawang’s sports and community hub.
Dawn over a world on which the sun will soon set on. Old Admiralty House in its current isolation on top of a hill, with the fast invading sea of concrete in the background.
The hub, it seems from what’s been said about it, will feature swimming pools, multi-play courts, a hawker centre, a polyclinic and a senior care centre; quite a fair bit of intervention in a quiet, isolated and of late, a welcome patch of green in the area’s fast spreading sea of concrete. Plans for this surfaced during the release of what became the 2014 Master Plan, which saw a revision on the intended location of Sembawang’s sports and recreation complex from the corner of Sembawang Avenue and Sembawang Road to the parcel of land on which the monument stands.
![The original intended location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2008].](https://thelongnwindingroad.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ura-master-plan-2008.png)
The original intended location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2008].
The monument, a beautifully designed Arts and Crafts movement inspired house, is without a doubt the grandest of the former base’s senior officers’ residences built across the naval base. Set apart from the other residences, it occupies well selected position placed atop a hill in the base’s southwestern corner, providing it with an elevation fitting of it, a necessary degree of isolation and privacy, and the most pleasing of surroundings – all of which will certainly be altered by the hub, notwithstanding the desire to “incorporate the natural environment and heritage of the area”.
A day time view.
![The revised location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2014]](https://thelongnwindingroad.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ura-master-plan-2014.png)
The revised location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2014].
The naval base that Old Admiralty House recalls is one to which colonial and post-colonial Singapore owes much economically. With the last working remnants of the base are being dismantled, the area is slowly losing its links to a past that is very much a part of it and Singapore’s history and whatever change the creation of the sports and community hub brings to Old Admiralty House and its settings, it must be done in a way that the monument at the very least maintains its dignity, and not in a way in which it is absorbed into a mess of interventions that will have us forget its worth.
Detail of a 1945 Map of the Naval Base showing the area where ‘Admiralty House’ is. The house is identified as the ‘Admiral Superintendent’s Residence’ in the map.
More on Old Admiralty House: An ‘English country manor’ in Singapore’s north once visited by the Queen
Around Old Admiralty House
The former Admiralty House, likened by some to an English country manor.
A swimming pool said to have been constructed by Japanese POWs.
An old concrete lamp post on the grounds.
What remains of a flagstaff moved in May 1970 from Kranji Wireless Station.
An air-raid shelter found on the grounds.
The Sumatras, squalls that blow rapidly in from the west, can sometimes add to the drama of the lightening skies at dawn. Such was the case this morning on the Straits of Johor, as observed from Beaulieu Jetty in Sembawang at first light. It didn’t take long however for the scene to turn from the magical one pictured at 6.28 am to one of darkness and gloom. More on the Sumatras can be found on the National Environment Agency’s website: Sumatras. Other encounters I have had with Sumatras at dawn can be found at the following posts:
Clouds being blown in by the Sumatras at daybreak, 6.28am 28 May 2016.
6.36 am, just two minutes before the sky opened up its floodgates.
The dramatic show of light at sunrise, as seen from the north of Singapore at 6.54 am on 16 April 2016.
Some information on the area:
A new day over a world made new, Kallang Basin, seen on 14 March 2016 at 7.06 am. The Sports Hub, with the distinct profiles of the new National Stadium and the Indoor Stadium can be seen against the backdrop of the lightening sky.
The basin in my younger days, where several of Singapore’s larger rivers spilled into the sea, was a hub of much activity with industries and several boat building and repair yards up the rivers. With also the mooring of wooden boats in the basin itself, the view one got of the basin was one dominated by the hulls and masts of the boats floating on its then malodorous waters.
Today, we are offered a much altered view of the basin. A ten year clean-up effort, which was initiated in 1977, has seen that the waters that now spill into it, smell much less. The boats of yesterday’s basin no longer colour its now clean waters. Reclamation of land and the closure of its only opening to the sea by the Marina Barrage, have cut it off from the sea.
As part of the city centre Marina Reservoir and the Kallang Riverside development, the basin has become a hub for a different activity. The boats that we see are one no longer intended for trade but are those used for sports and leisure.
It has been a long while since we a celebration of the new day as spectacular as the one seen on Monday.
Colours of the new day, Monday, 18 May 2015, 6.48 am as seen from the beach at Kg Wak Hassan.
Where trees once spoke to me, and birds rejoiced in the colours of the new day, there will now be no tomorrows, for the songs of yesterday …
The magic of the new day, 18 February 2012, corner of Gambas Avenue and Woodlands Avenue 10.
The tragedy of the new world, 25 January 2015, corner of Gambas Avenue and Woodlands Avenue 10.
The colours of sunrise, as seen at the Tebrau Strait at 6.41 am on Christmas Day 2014.
An island that always seemed to me to have an air of mystery about it is the oddly shaped Pulau Jong. Set in an area of Singapore, the southern islands, that has much legend attached to it, legend does have it that Pulau Jong or “Junk Island” in Malay, had been a junk that had been transformed by the spirit of the sea into the island. The legend is described by H. T. Haughton in his 1889 paper, Notes on Names of Places in the Island of Singapore and its Vicinity:
Pulau Jong, “junk island”, a small island of a conical shape to the North of Pulau Seking and Pulau Sebarok. The story is that Malay pirates one night attacked a Chinese Junk, which was anchored where the island now is, and just as the Malays got alongside, the Nakhodah of the junk awoke. On seeing the pirates, through terror, he uttered such a frightful yell that the sea-spirit turned the junk into an island much to the consternation of the Malays.
Pulau Jong at sunrise.
Lying east of Pulau Semakau (which has absorbed Pulau Seking or Sakeng) and northwest of Pulau Sebarok, the tiny mound of an island measuring some 0.6 ha., is fringed to its north by some of the deepest waters in the Singapore Strait. From afar, the island looks rather inhospitable – particularly at high tide when only it tiny cliff faces and the clump of trees rising some 23 metres on its mound are exposed. It is at low tide that the fringing reefs that surround the island expose themselves – the reefs extend as far out as 0.4 nautical miles (about 700 metres) south-east in the direction of Pulau Sebarok.
Junk Island at low-tide.
The fringing reef on the island’s south-east reaching out towards the oil terminal at Sebarok.
A navigation chart showing water depths around Pulau Jong.
The reefs do make it difficult to land on the relatively untouched island – one of the last to resist human intervention in the waters of Singapore, but landing on it at sunrise was certainly a worthwhile experience, not just for the rich coral life found in the reefs, but also for the majestic perspectives one gets of the island being on it, the view of all that surround it, and an interesting look at the island’s geology and the glimpses it offers into its bird life.
Heading on a dinghy towards the island.
Landing at sunrise – the reefs do make it a challenge to land safely on the island.
The island’s rock formations are part of the are Jurong Formation that marks the geology of much of Singapore’s west.
More rock formations …
A pair of collared kingfishers.
And another perched on a rock.
The junk, a very recognisable feature of southern Singapore’s seascape, has long been identified as an island for possible recreational use. More recently however, it does seem from the 2013 Land Use Plan that it would be be lost to future land reclamation. From the plan we see that it would be part of a large land mass that would also include Pulau Semakau and Pulau Sebarok and like the junks that once featured in the seas around us, the familiar sight of the junk that became an island will soon one that is forgotten.
A northward view.
The coral fringed beach looking west towards Pulau Semakau.
Cliff faces on Pulau Jong.
The reef
I didn’t spend much time in the reef, which has some rather nice looking hard and soft corals and sea cucumber. There were also sightings of nudibranchs and flatworms on the reef’s edge. For more posts on what the reef revealed and also a wonderful drone’s eye view of the island, do also check these postings out:
The visit to Pulau Jong is part of a series of visits to some of the lesser known shores of Singapore, in search of words and sounds for an IRememberSG funded project, Points of Departure.
A pano of the southern foreshore of Pulau Jong.
At 4.30 am, less than 24 hours after the adventure or what perhaps was more of a near misadventure on Cyrene, on Sunday, I found myself once again on a boat headed south. The destination this time was another patch reef, Terumbu Semakau, which lies just east of the original Pulau Semakau – now part of an enlarged island of the same name that serves as an offshore landfill.
A view of Terumbu Semakau under the light of the moon, looking across to an enlarged Pulau Semakau.
Location of Terumbu Semakau relative to Pulau Semakau as seen on a navigational chart.
Terumbu Semakau in the moonlight.
The super moon seen setting over Pulau Semakau.
Thankfully, the weather provided much greater joy than it did a day before, allowing the group I was with to take-in an almost magical view of the reef bathed in the light of the super moon and then in the early light of day. The setting was one that seemed perfect for romance – the chorus we could hear of romancing amphibians across on Pulau Semakau seemed to testify to that.
6.28 am, the lights of Singapore’s southern seas, that of the ships at anchor is seen against the lightening sky.
The terumbu at sunrise.
Finding romance on Terumbu Semakau with the rising of the sun.
The reef, as with many of southern Singapore’s once numerous patch reefs, bears the scars of the developments of the last five decades. Its once lush meadows of seagrass have all but disappeared, leaving the moonlit scene without the stars that illuminated our visit to Cyrene. The group did however, find a couple of stars that, so disguised, were ones I wouldn’t have recognised. Shaped as their common name suggests, these cushion sea stars are quite recognisable upturned – wearing the unmistakeable mark of a true star on their well hidden undersides.
A cushion star.
The underbelly of a cushion star.
A smaller and less richly coloured cushion sea star.
The expense of the reef did, in the light of the silvery moon, reveal quite a lot more to the keener pairs of eye. Ria Tan in blog post Terumbu Semakau: still no seagrass recovery, does bring to light several interesting sightings. It was, however, as unlikely romance that might have been the highlight of the day – the romance of a pair of rare tiger cowries, taking place discreetly behind a large piece of coral.
A pair of rare tiger cowries, discreet in their romance.
Feeling crabby, early in the morning.
A less than romantic find – a fish trap erected on the reef.
The romance found on Terumbu Semakau, is one that may soon be lost, as foretold by the Land Use Plan that was released by the Ministry of National Development last year in support of the less than well received Population White Paper. In the plan, the reef is seen to be within an area that is potentially a future land reclamation site that will create an even larger Pulau Semakau – leaving very little of the patch reef systems that once shaped our southern waters left for us to find romance in.
Possible future reclamation poses a threat to the future of the reef (source: Land Use Plan 2013).
The incinerated waste receiving station at Pulau Semakau as seen from the reef.
Branching Montipora corals in the middle of the terumbu.
More views of the reef in the moonlight
The visit to Terumbu Semakau is part of a series of visits to some of the lesser known shores of Singapore, in search of words and sounds for an IRememberSG funded project, Points of Departure.
The view across the Tebrau Strait at 7 am on 21 June 2014, as seen from the seawall at Kampong Wak Hassan, an area that hosted a village by the sea , on which the sun has long set.
I have made a habit of getting up at ungodly hours of late. While I may not be alone on that in Singapore since the excitement of Brazil began last week, my motivation has little to do with the beautiful game and what I really am losing sleep over is a desire to acquaint myself with some of Singapore’s lesser known shores for a project I have embarked on.
One example of the colourful company one gets to keep that compensates for the lack of sleep: a noble volute – a variety of large sea snail.
One of the magical moments I am losing sleep over: first light over a submerged reef on Beting Bronok, exposed at low tide.
Monday morning had me on a boat at 5 in the morning bound for a relatively remote and unheard shore north of the restricted military island of Pulau Tekong. A submerged reef with a rather curious sounding name, Beting Bronok, I did only hear of it when it came up as one of two nature areas identified for conservation in the 2013 Land Use Plan that was released in support of the hotly debated Population White Paper, which was confirmed in the recently gazetted 2014 Master Plan.
Another view of Beting Bronok at first light.
Marine conservationists carrying out a survey on the reef.
We have added Beting Bronok & Pulau Unum and Jalan Gemala to our list of Nature Areas, where the natural flora and fauna will be protected from human activity. Beting Bronok and Pulau Unum extend the Pulau Tekong Nature Area. These sites contain a wide array of marine and coastal flora and fauna. Of particular significance are two locally endangered mangrove plant species (out of 23 species from 13 families), three very rare and ten rare mollusc species (out of 36 species from 16 families). Some of the wildlife species found here are the Knobbly Sea Star (Protoreaster nodosus) and Thorny Sea Urchin (Prionocidaris sp.).
Beting Bronok and Pulau Umun is one of two nature areas identified for conservation.
‘Beting’, as I understand, refers to a sandbar or a shoal in Malay. That sandbars were identifiable by names is perhaps an indication of the interactions that the people of the littoral might once have had with them. The opportunity for interaction today has of course been drastically diminished with the tide of development sweeping the people of the sea to higher and dryer grounds and many of the staging points for such being closed off.
The view across Beting Bronok to the gaping mouth of Sungai Johor.
A glass anemone.
The Bronok Sandbar and the waters around it, are ones once rich in marine life drawn to its reef, which is exposed only at low spring tides. The only submerged reef left in the northern waters, it unfortunately is in poor health due to the effects of nearby reclamation work. The indefatigable marine conservation champion, Ria Tan, with whom I had the privilege of visiting the reef with, likens what are her annual visits to reef, to watching a favourite grandmother “painfully, slowly fade away” (see her recent post Beting Bronok is slowly dying).
A deformed biscuit star.
Walking with a walking stick on water – Ria Tan.
Staring into the gaping mouth of Sungai Johor, the reef is fed by waters where a huge amount of fresh water is mixed in with the sea. The river, is one that does have a history. It was at the heart of the early Johor Sultanate that was established in the fallout from the loss of Malacca to the Portuguese, its waters disturbed by the movements of the floating instruments of colonialisation headed up river in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The incoming tide with a view of Pengerang on the left bank of Sungai Johor.
An octopus.
The cannons the waters hear today, are only imaginary. Fired from dry ground on nearby Tekong, in mock battles fought in that rite of passage required of young Singaporean men as reluctant recruits. The bigger battle for many on Tekong, would be fought in their minds as the young men, many fresh out of school, struggle to adapt to the rigours and physical demands of boot camp away from the comforts of home.
Another anemone.
And another.
The passage in the dark through knee deep waters from the boat to the dry ground on the sandbar, while it did not quite require a battle, was one that was filled with trepidation – the graphic accounts told on the boat of painful brushes with the not so gentle creatures of the shallows does have the effect of putting the fear of God in you (see also: Chay Hoon’s encounter with a stingray at Beting Bronok and Ivan Kwan stepping on a stonefish). The utterance during the passage of what did sound like “I see a stripey snake” did surely have added effect – especially in recalling an encounter from my youthful days that had a similarly decorated creature sinking its fangs into an ankle belonging to a friend of the family.
Probably a false scorpion fish I am told.
That encounter, wasn’t so far away, at Masai in the waters of the same strait, taking place in the confusion that accompanied a frenzied rush to vacate the waters, from which we had been harvesting ikan bilis, that followed shouts of “snake, snake”. The family friend was extremely fortunate. No venom was transferred in the exchange, and other than the shock clearly visible in the colour and expression that he wore, there were no other ill effects.
A Bailer Snail making a meal of another snail.
Standing on the sandbar at the break of day is as surreal as it is a magical experience, especially so at the moment when the luminescent early light reveals the sandbar’s craggy coral littered surface – the magic is especially in the sense that is does also give of space and isolation, a feeling that does seem elusive on the overcrowded main island.
A nudibranch.
A seahorse taking shelter.
It didn’t however take very long before I was reminders of where in time and space I was, the roar of the emblems of the new colonial powers of progress and prosperity on an angled path from and to one of the busiest airports in the world at Changi, was hard to ignore. The area lies directly below one of the the approaches to the airport located close to Singapore’s eastern tip and built on land that has come up where the sea once had been, sitting right smack over what had once been one of Singapore’s most beautiful coastal areas, and an area in which I had my first and fondest memories of our once beautiful sea.
As did the seemingly fleeting moments I did steal from the lost paradise of my childhood days, the fleeting moments discovering Beting Bronok’s fading beauty will leave a lasting impression on me. My hope is that, unlike the names of the places of the lost paradise that have faded into obscurity, the curious sounding Beting Bronok is a name through which our future generations are reminded of what had once been our beautiful sea.
The wild shores are perhaps a little wilder than you think.
7.01 am, 18 June 2014. The new National Stadium at Kallang, set to host its first event this weekend, is seen against the colours of the new day breaking through on a storm tossed morning.
A view of the soon to be opened new National Stadium from across the Kallang River at dawn – the dawn perhaps of a new “Kallang Roar”. The stadium, part of the newly redeveloped Singapore Sports Hub, is a long overdue replacement for the much-loved old National Stadium, which came down in 2010. The old stadium, was where the much feared “Kallang Roar” was born in, the collective noise that was heard from the cheers, chants and stamping of feet when as much as 70,000 packed the stadium during the days of the Malaysia Cup. The stadium, which features a retractable roof, will open its doors on the weekend of 21/22 June when it hosts its first event, the World Cup 10s Rugby.
Another long exposure. This time to capture the early light over the Straits of Johor through another rain coloured morning, at 6.22 am on 7 June 2014.
It was against the backdrop of the drama of a passing storm playing out in the rapidly changing light of the morning, that I found myself standing on a sandbar four nautical miles out into the Singapore Strait.
The view from a sandbar in the light of the storm coloured morning.
A rainbow appears as the weather clears.
Walking where few now tread.
Reflections on the morning.
The scene revealed by the transformation of night into day in the darkness and light of the storm coloured morning was one that did seem rather surreal, disfigured by the craggy interventions of the natural world juxtaposed against the human interventions that now dominate Singapore’s nearshore.
The morning’s drama.
Light in the darkness.
Juxtapositions of the natural world against the human world.
A natural spotlight on the interventions of men that now dominate Singapore’s nearshore.
It wasn’t quite what I had intended in interrupting that much needed weekend’s slumber. The excursion was one to have a feel for the patch reef, Terumbu Pempang Laut, to which the sandbar was a part of, as well as the island to its south, Pulau Sudong, regular visitors from which it would once have hosted.
The changing hues in the early hours of the day as seen from the boat that left at 6am.
A northward view across the reef.
The expanded Pulau Sudong, as seen from Terumbu Pempang Laut.
It was as close as one could get to Pulau Sudong, now part of a restricted military zone. The island, once itself not much more than perhaps a spit of sand that was part of the surrounding reefs, had been one of several islands off Singapore’s south-western shoreline on which stilted villages of the sea had decorated.
Pulau Sudong in the 1950s (source: National Archives of Singapore Online).
The dwellings on stilts arranged around the island’s foreshore, had been on that had evolved from buoyant mobile dwellings of those, the sea nomads from the pre-Raffles era, who the occupants had inherited the seas from. Living on the sea, the nomads and their descendants also lived off it; the waters and the reefs around the island, contributing much to their livelihoods.
Even without there being a source of fresh water, the island at its height, supported a community of several hundred and boasted of schools (there apparently were two in the 1940s), a clinic, a community centre and a police post.
The reefs, teeming with marine life and exposed as the tide receded, was where life on the islands might have often extended to. Men would be seen laying their bubu, traps made by the fishermen themselves out of strips of bamboo, weighing them down with corals that the reef did provide. The womenfolk also found their way to the reefs, seeking a harvest of both edible produce of the sea and items such as corals that could be sold.
Corals were harvested by the women of Pulau Sudong.
Life as the reefs might have seen, is quite wonderfully captured in words by Chew Soo Beng, who in “Fishermen in Flats” (1982), describes the activity on a Terumbu Raya, a reef to Sudong’s west:
Groups of women row their kolek to different parts of the exposed portions of the reef to gather sea produce. In the past, this activity was performed with considerable gaiety, seeming to be an enjoyable activity. Everyone carried a basket and unmarried girls wore bunga raya (hibiscus flower) in their hair.
In teams of threes or fours, usually to form a line, they combed the reef for agar-agar (an edible seaweed), gulong, the trepang and a variety of beche-de-mer. When both the tide and sun were low, the gather chatter of the women at work would drift into the village where the men, excluded from the offshore merriment, conversed beneath their favourite pondok.
The reefs see a different merriment today. The chatter of women gathering in the harvest is now replaced by the excitement of sea birds seeking a harvest of their own. Human chatter is now heard on occasion, of those who seek only to harvest what the reef can tell them – as an part of a continuous marine survey that the tireless Ria Tan of the Wild Shores of Singapore champions.
The merriment the reefs see today are those of the sea birds seeking their harvest from the sea.
It was with the group that I ventured out to the sandbar. Of the finds of the morning’s harvest, the one that did perhaps trigger the greatest excitement was a sighting of a small giant fluted clam. This find, along with what else the reef did reveal, is described by Ria in Terumbu Pempang Laut check up in her blog, which is a glorious celebration of life on our shores.
The giant clam that raised the level of excitement.
On the reef’s edge.
One thing that Ria does point out in her post that did get my attention, is that life around the shores of the reefs and the islands might to come to an end. The reefs, along with the cluster that it belongs to which also includes Terumbu Pempang Tengah to its immediate east and Terumbu Pempang Darat, face an uncertain future. The Land Use Plan, released to support the less than popularly received Population White Paper in early 2013, does show that the area is one where future land reclamation work could take place.
Possible future reclamation poses a threat to the future of the reefs and the islands (source: Land Use Plan 2013).
If that does happen, the reefs will be incorporated into part of a land mass that will include the Bukom cluster of islands and the Hantu twins, leaving the only ghosts haunting our southern shores (hantu translates into “ghost” in Malay) – there was also another Pulau Hantu that has since been renamed as Keppel Island, that of lost islands and reefs, and of a people and a way-of-life that will never again be seen.
The future of many of the southern islands as individual islands, such as Pulau Jong (seen here with Pulau Sebarok), are also under threat from the Land Use Plan.
Life on Pulau Sudong, one of the last of the Southern Islands to host a resident population, did itself come to an abrupt end in early 1980. By then, reclamation that added some 174 ha. to its area, had already decimated the once rich fishing grounds that surrounded it, prompting a move for many in the late 1970s to seek a new beginning in Tanah Besar as the mainland was referred to, completing an assimilation into the Malay world.
Initially intended as a recreational island, Pulau Sudong was closed to the public in mid-1982. Used since as part of an air force live-firing area that also includes Pulau Pawai and Pulau Senang to its south, what ghosts it may have inherited from its long discarded past, may also have abandoned it.
Reflections off a lagoon at low tide.
The eastward view from a location off Terumbu Pempang Laut, a patch reef between Pulau Bukom and Pulau Sudong in the Straits of Singapore, at 6.45 am on the first of June. The view sees the silhouettes of Shell’s Ethylene cracker plant at its Bukom petrochemical complex in the band of the light coloured by the sun’s rising under the shadow of the storm darkened sky. The plant, an addition to Shell’s Bukom petrochemical complex in 2010, sits on what is actually the expanded island of Pulau Ular (which translates as Snake Island), southwest of Pulau Bukom Besar. The island is now joined by reclamation to Pulau Bukom Kechil to its east and Pulau Busing to its west and is connected to Pulau Bukom Besar by bridge.
Shell’s association with Pulau Bukom (Besar), goes back to the 1890s when kerosene storage facilities were first established on the island. A refinery, which was to herald the start of Singapore’s thrust into the the oil refining business – Singapore is now among the world’s top three export refining centres, was completed in 1961.
Shell’s expansion into Pulau Bukom Kechil began in the 1970s and displaced the 200o or so inhabitants who were on the island at the end of the 1960s. In both instances, the development required land to be reclaimed from coastal reefs and mangroves as well as the islands’ hilly terrains to be flattened.
Pulau Bukom was the location of a failed terrorist attack in 1974. Mounted by a team of four from the Japanese Red Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian intending to blow up oil storage facilities on the island, the aim of what has come to be known as the Laju Incident (the Laju was the ferry that the terrorists hijacked in an attempt to escape), was to disrupt supplies to U.S. supported forces in South Vietnam. More on the incident can be found at the National Library’s Singapore Infopedia page: Laju Hijacking.
Shell’s complex at Pulau Bukom, which incidentally is the Anglo-Dutch company’s largest refinery complex, was in more recent times the scene of a massive fire. The fire burned for some 32 hours on 28 and 29 September 2011 before it was extinguished. The fire, although confined to a small area, caused a huge disruption to the complex’s operations and resulted in a huge financial loss to the company.
Colours of dawn, 6.31 am, 31 May 2014, as seen at the unmanicured beach of Kampong Wak Hassan.
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“Every history buff of Singapore should get a copy of this book”
– Professor Tommy Koh
Featuring 160 ‘secret’ spots in Singapore, Secret Singapore is a guide on which I had the pleasure of working on with Heidi Sarna.
Secret Singapore was among the best selling non-fiction titles in Singapore following its launch in 2020 – not bad for a travel guide!
If you are in Singapore, you may purchase them directly from me.
Listen to a radio interview on Secret Singapore on Money FM 89.3 on 22 May 2021
Discover hidden sides of Singapore — virtually!
What’s on
Hidden in Plain Sight
(Virtual Tours)
For more information, please click on the photos:
More info:
Fly me to the Moon
Spain’s most beautiful town!
Ancient walls of Dubrovnik
Between a rock and a hard place
Men’s Folio Nov 2013
More on the series:
A weekend's adventure in exciting Shanghai thanks to Spring Airlines, which now flies from Singapore to Shanghai Pudong.
Temasek Polytechnic Global Community Day
Colonial Changi – a virtual tour
[plus Old Changi Hospital]
(9 – 15 Nov 2020)
Take a virtual tour to explore a hidden side of Changi from 9 to 15 Nov 2020 (public tours on 15 Nov 2020).
Sign up at: Global Community Day 2020 (Colonial Changi)
[programme calendar – click here]
Together with 9 other bloggers and thanks to Tigerair Philippines and the Philippine Department of Tourism, I found myself on a dream trip to Boracay in July 2013. Read about the fantastic experience I had at Boracay Island Escapade or on my blog.
Posts:
My experience on this site:
Macau Tower Fireworks! Streets of Happiness Wine, Fast Cars and Butterflies Where old meets new The House of Dancing Water Sky 21, a Luxury Destination Minus 8 degrees Celcius in Macau Coloane Village and Egg Tarts Colours of Macau Taipa, Food Street and Pork Chop Buns----------
A sequel in May 2013:
My Melbourne Experience
An adventure in springtime Melbourne courtesy of Tourism Victoria, Jetstar and omy.sg with nine other bloggers. My set of experiences can be found on this site.
4 Days in Hong Kong
Courtesy of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), I had the opportunity to have a 4 day adventure in Hong Kong with 9 other bloggers. To read our collective Hong Kong Travel Blog entries, please click on the icon below:
Unmanicured Spaces
Places of Mystery
Haunting Spaces
The Long and Winding Road 