Pulau Subar Darat aka Big Sister's Island

Last Sunday, I decided to let my duck out for a little wet sojourn to Singapore's southern islands, thinking that the fresh air and savoury scent of the rotting dolphin salty sea would do him good.

Wildfilms is a crusty crew of seadogs dedicated to documenting every still living scrap of marine life that yet survives on Singapore's sandblasted shores. It's a thankless job that involves getting up at unearthly hours when most decent folk are making hot love dozing, juggling heavy bags of photographic and video gear onto shaky bumboats and hunting for dangerous sea creatures in the dark of the dawn. I suspect some members of the team would like to do this everyday, but in practice, the expeditions are timed to the tidal schedules, with the most fruitful pickings to be gathered on those rare nights where the moon shuns the earth and the sea sinks to a brief low that leaves its denizens exposed and examinable.

Most trips start at 3-4 in the morning, so this Sunday's outing to Little Sister's Island was a particularly late session, meeting as we did at a quarter past seven at the spanking new Marina South Pier. This wave-roofed, three-story complex in the middle of nowhere (to be exact, between groves of casuarinas and the dank, green sea) is a facility that replaces the now-closed Clifford Pier. On the ground level, a row of counters offers water taxis to Kusu Island, the Sisters Islands, St. John's Island and Lazarus Island. A little stall near the taxi stand sells copies of Kompas, while the two men who gladly took over the taxi from which I got out spoke a Slavic tongue. Clearly, this is no place for landlubbers, but luckily my duck boasts some ties with shipfaring cousins.

It costs $17 per head to catch an old workboat to the island, a trip that lasts about 20 minutes. But now, a little history. The Sisters' Islands came about as the indirect result of a duck who could not restrain himself. Apparently, there were once two offshore sisters, Lina and Minah, who did not much like ducks, preferring instead each other's fraternal company. After their mother died, they went to stay with an old uncle who shall remain nameless. One fine day, when Lina was bathing drawing water at the well, Jack Sparrow a pirate chieftain appeared and her beauty led him to unsheathe his duck sword, wanting to take her as his bride. The next day, he arrived at the sisters' home and performed the classic caveman courtship ritual of throwing his chosen girl over the shoulder before heading home in a boat. Unfortunately for him, Lina was apparently a mutant and her dismay unleashed meteorological powers that caused a storm. Minah, forgetting that she was not a duck and thus could not swim well,  tried to follow her sister into the water but a wave overtook her. Seeing this, Lina flung herself into the sea to join her sister in Davy Jones' Locker. When the storm blew down, two small islands were found to have emerged on the spots where the sisters sank. The island closer to the mainland was named Pulau Subar Darat (darat meaning land in Malay), while the other isle was named Pulau Subar Laut. It is also said that every year, on the very day that the incident took place, the weather will be bad. What a temperamental pair!

We landed on what was probably Lina's bosom, a jetty rimmed by a lush outcrop of corals and rich clumps of brown algae (Sargassum sp.). The pirates may be long gone, but a gang of thieving monkeys still inhabit the island. They have learnt how to unbuckle clasps and open zips and put these skills to use that day by stealing the Bonjour bread from the bag of one of the group. One individual is also believed to be enjoying the sounds of a misbegotten iPod. From the jetty, we walked to the other side of the island (presumably Lina's bumcrack) where there is a wide lagoon sheltered by a stone seawall. The tide was out, exposing a network of shallow sandy patches and rock-strewn islets amidst largely clear, knee-deep water. On the beach above the highwater level, tiny pits in the sand hid antlion larvae in wait for hymenopteran prey, while roving tiger beetles dashed about like crazed sprinters. Footprints in the sand that flanked a thin dragline revealed the earlier activities of a seafood-loving monitor lizard.

The tide was so low that it was possible to walk all the way out to the rocks beyond the seawall. There, I found a colourful bright blue object wedged amongst the calcified rocks, which I discreetly stuffed in my pocket for keepsakes, lest some other marine creature take a fancy to it. How careless of the owner to leave behind such a wonderful artifact of aluminium foil and shiny print in this wasteland of water and worms!

The seawall is rimmed by slippery rocks overgrown with algae. Scampering everywhere were little sea cockroaches which are in fact isopods (Ligia sp.), a kind of crustacean. They have rather big buggy eyes and boast more legs than your everyday kitchen roach, making them much speedier and far harder to stomp on. Alongside the isopods were hordes of false limpets (Siphonaria atra – I am told that unlike true limpets, Siphonarids will drown if forced underwater for too long) and nerites (Nerita undata) grazing at leisure. Unlike your usual garden variety snail, I suspect adding salt won't be much use in dealing with these slimey pests....

While wandering on the flats, occasional claping or clicking sounds could be heard. Some of the clicks were probably made by snapping shrimps (Alpheus sp.), which have an enlarged pincer adapted for acoustic signalling. I couldn't see any, as they were probably hiding in holes such as these (left). More visible was a stranded scallop (Pectinidae) that was flapping noisily on a sand bar. As far as shellfish go, scallops are a little different from dumb cockles and clams, having an array of some sixty little eyes that stare from between the opened halves to detect ducks and other predators. And unlike most bivalves, which was sedentary in adulthood, scallops will flip and flap around in an effort to dislodge unwanted paparazzi. Call it seefood rather than seafood... 

Someone also found a stonefish, which was decidedly displeased at being discovered despite its best attempts at imitating a rock. I should like to point out that the two black holes in the pictures are not the eyes, but probably some respiratory outlet. The eyes proper are located on both sides of the raised 'crest' after the fish's mouth. Some make think this gaping creature hideous and fugly and repulsive, but my kindly duck finds it a little cute, despite the wee neurotoxic effects of stepping on its dorsal spines. After all, like monkfish and some monkeys, they can't help being born this way...

I was also lucky enough to find two little octopussies octopi that turned alternatively sandy pale and rock red livid at being unmasked by my tanned and trim duck. Nobody had informed them, it seems, that my duck doesn't really like shellfish. In the lagoon, they probably prey on the countless transparent shrimp that dot every square foot of safe substrate.

Hovering in midwater are their chameleonic cousins the squids. Also colour-changing artists, tiny pygmy squids less than an inch long hang fearlessly between clusters of coral, beaming in spotty gold or flashing more brazen tones in response to sudden unruly thoughts (such as the prospect of being turned into sotong balls).

A large carpet anemone. No Nemos here, though.

I think these are zoanthids, which are small anemones that live in colonies.

Are these hydroids? These feathery tentacles were busy gathering bits of food and bringing it to the mouth at their base.

Are these sponges? Or sea squirts?

Another anemone, a Phymanthus sp. Also Nemo-less.

Tiny hermit crabs in snail shells less than an inch long were abundant on the sand, especially the final centimetres just before the water laps the shore. I also found two other crabs. The tiny one creeping on a bit of hard coral is probably a Baruna sp. and the larger frilly fellow hiding amidst some seaweed on the right is probably a Pilumnus vespertilio. Its shaggy hairs trap debris to make it look even more inedible than it already is (it also feeds on zooanthids which make it toxic). Thankfully, my duck has never taken to crabs, whether steamed in soup or smothered with chilli!

A flat worm with the ability (and frills) to dance a mean aquatic samba.

A margined glossodoris nudibranch. I don't have much to say about these naked snails, except what was already written earlier.

Much harder to photograph than the sedentary and sand-hugging creatures were countless schools of fish, the size of which increased in proportion to the depth of the water, with fry-like slivers of silver darting about in an inch of water to crescent perches (Terapon jarbua), sergeant damsels (Abudefduf sp.) and unidentified deep green damselfish flinging themselves into hideouts in deeper pools. On the left is what appeared to me at first to be a small sea snake, poking its head into various burrows and crevices in search of prey, but on second guess it's probably a reef eel (Opichthyidae).

By about eleven, we had finishing encircling the seawall and the patchy pools were fast drowning in the pre-noon tide. Soon after we gathered back above the beach, the lagoon was one again with the southern sea. When we hopped back on the waiting boat, however, there was a worrying crack and splash just before we set off, which caused my (non-swimming) duck to panic and cluck madly no worry at all. It turned out that a rope had gotten caught in the propeller and a part of the deck to which it was moored got torn off. We had to swim back to the mainland wait for about an hour for another boat to arrive while munching on seaweed and sacrificing a virgin to Neptune/Ulmo/The Submariner/Aquaman/Nemo who had wed the two sisters in the meantime. Back at the pier, the cafeteria served a beverage that was aptly bright blue.

For a more factual account of the outing, read here.

Comments

[JC]

Lovely place. Its really nice to know that there are still some marine habitat in SG.

[cour marly]

Very very nice.... I've always wanted to visit Chek Jawa or join the reefwalkers for a jaunt, there's so much to see!! One of these days I'll have to get my butt out of bed and do this.

[budak]

I think it's still possible to sign for Reefwalks here: http://www.wildsingapore.com/places/semtour.htm
http://www.wildsingapore.com/sos/walks.htm
http://www.bluewatervolunteers.org/content/view/13/37/

[cour marly]

It's the problem of my sleepy arse not wanting to get outta bed till hi-noon lah. I'm so lazy. :P

[Sam M.]

Actually the plural of octopus is octopodes or octupuses. Also, those are not zoanthids, but goniopora, astreopora, or similar, and zoa's are actually not anemone's, but corals... The things you believed to be hydroids are clove polyps. Fantastic pics!!! That stone fish must have been sweet.