Ubin Tua Pek Kong Celebration - Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of a 6 days celebratory festival of Pulau Ubin Fo Shan Ting Da Bo Gong Temple (Tua Pek Kong). Everyone is welcome to this celebratory event and there is event free bumboat service provided in the evening for all 6 days.

Notification banner at Ubin jetty.

At Changi Point Ferry Terminal, the same banner is placed outside Ubin Seafood Restaurant, next to the ferry terminal. While at the drop-off point of the ferry terminal, the schedule of events and free bumboat services is displayed.

12 May - 17 May 2014: Pulau Ubin Celebrates the Tua Pek Kong's birthday

Have you ever wondered what this interesting structure (left, photo below) at Ubin town is used for?

A stage seen at Ubin town.
[Photo by WildSingapore]

From 12 May to 17 May 2014, this stage will be transformed into a wayang (chinese opera) performance stage, showing Teochew opera.

More than 160 kg of rubbish found on Pulau Ubin shores [English news report]

Following up on the Chinese news report about the coastal trash on the Nothern part of Pulau Ubin, Channel News Asia and Today newspaper reported about the same news in English. My friend has updated that on the same evening the Chinese news clip was broadcasted, the English news also reported about it with a separate video clip.

In case you have missed the videos or did not read my previous post, here are the videos

Channel 8 News (Chinese)

Channel NewsAsia (English)


Here is the news article accompanying the English video clip:

SINGAPORE: A recent clean-up of the beaches at Pulau Ubin led by Outward Bound Singapore saw more than 160 kilogrammes of waste being collected.

Volunteers found fishing nets and abandoned barrels among the usual plastic bags and bottles in the rubbish deposited at Pulau Ubin's northern shores.

Chua Li San, head of character and curriculum development at Outward Bound Singapore, said: "We don't know what is actually being contained in those barrels. Is it petroleum or is it some other petrochemical waste?

"The fishing nets... we don't know if any fishes or birds will be trapped by the nets.

"Is cleaning the beach the only solution? We need to do something more extensively... to educate people."

Fishermen said they usually bring their rubbish to the collection point at the nearby Marina Country Club and added that some of the waste could have floated over from kelongs at the opposite shores of neighbouring countries.

The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority said it is an offence for fish farmers to dispose waste into sea waters.

- CNA/ec

Coastal Trash at Northern Ubin [Chinese News Report]

A few days ago, Ria wrote a blog post about fish farm trash found and removed from the northern shore of Pulau Ubin despite the coastline being lined with security fence. The cleanup activity was coordinated by Chua Li San from Outward Bound Singapore. Officers from the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) were invited to view the situation from the seaward side. You can read more about from Ria's blog post here.

Today, Mediacorp's Channel 8 evening and night newscast reported about this situation and interviewed a few fish farms nearby.

Here is the news clip from Channel 8 news' youtube channel.

For the benefit of my readers who do not understand Chinese, I have translated the content of the video. It is not 100% translated but I tried my best to translate as accurately as possible the main points covered in the news report. I also did the Chinese transcribe of the video.

Translation (Coastal trash at Northern Ubin)The northern shore of Pulau Ubin is often seen littered with large amount of trash. In the most recent cleanup event, volunteers removed 165 kg of trash within a day. News reporter found out that among the list of items removed are abandoned fishnets and chemical containing plastic drums. These items may pose threats to and damage the ecological environment.  

Narrator: 

Otter rolling around on the sand, heron resting on the fence. However, oil drums, styrofoam boxes and plastic bags are littering all around. Outward Bound Singapore (OBS), who regularly organises coastal cleanup for the public volunteers, commented that such sights are common.  

Interviewee (OBS): 

Just two weeks after the cleanup, we found a refrigerator here. Why are there still oil drums present? Why are there still items used by the fish farms found here?  

Narrator: 

In the nearby fish farms, a fish farmer commented that the fish farms dispose their trash in the marina country club nearby. As for the oil drums, it is possible that they were either not securely tied or dislodged by the strong waves.  

Interviewee (Fish farm): 

During presence of strong waves, the ropes securing the drums may break, resulting in the drums to be displaced and float out. The direction in which the drums float to depends on the direction of the wind.The wire fences on the security barriers are old and damaged with holes. At high tide, if the trash is floating near the holes on the fence, they will be washed through towards the shore.  

Narrator: 

The fish farmers also feedback that sometimes during strong northerly winds, trash from the kelong of neighbouring country also gets swept in the direction of Pulau Ubin. Volunteers have noticed fish trapped and killed by abandoned fishnets along the coastline. Disposed plastic drums are found to have contained chemicals.  

Reporter: 

Although OBS and public volunteers have access to this Northern shore on Pulau Ubin to conduct cleanup sessions, it was not enough to resolve the root cause of this problem – a measure to control those who discard trash illegally or those who are irresponsible in their trash management. It is unknown, at the moment, the kind of marine damage or pollution these trash can cause. Personnel from AVA and NEA visited this area last Saturday (5 October 2013) to conduct some checks. AVA emphasised that it is an offence for fish farmers to dispose their trash into the sea. Currently, no one has been fined for such offence.

I'll be glad to update this translation should you have better translated sentence(s).

Seems like the fish farmer made it sound so easy for the floating trash to just pass through the broken security fence during high tide. I am sure that some of the items removed from the shore could not float. So how did these items get onto the shore then?
I do have some doubts about the accuracy of information in this news report.

What about you? I welcome you to raise any questions you might have from this news report. Just drop me a comment with your name.

Lontong and Mangrove tree at P.Ubin

I always wonder what the hype is about with the Sunday-only lontong at Pak Ali's shop on Pulau Ubin until I tried it today.

Image from Pulau Ubin Stories

Today I decided that I shall join Andy, Kwan Siong, Ria and November for a trip to Ubin to check out the Bruguiera hainesii and also try the famous Ubin lontong.

Ubin lontong

The lontong gravy is light but full of flavour. Though a simple looking dish, each ingredient is important to make the dish perfect and delicious. The ketupat rice is soft and well cooked, easy for the teeth. When broken up into smaller pieces, small quantity of rice grains falls apart. It is not like those I had tried, which are hard and difficult to chew on.

The lontong is cooked by Pak Ali's wife only on Sundays. I am not sure if she still does the cooking herself now since she is aged and walking pose a challenge for her. The lontong is truly worth every bite and lives up to its fame on Pulau Ubin. Pak Ali is no longer around as he passed away in late 2010 due to cancer. More about the story of Pak Ali on Pulau Ubin Stories.

After the yummy lontong, we headed to Nordin Beach for a check on the rarest mangrove tree in the world - Bruguiera hainesii. The tree is flowering furiously.

Leaves of B. hainesii, with many flowers.

Many fallen calyx

Calyx closeup

Another view of the calyx

Propagule of various sizes

I am a lousy identifier when it comes to plants. However I am happy for myself that I got a close look at the rare tree. This tree we went is probably the easiest B. hainesii tree to access in Singapore.

The trip to Nordin Beach was shorten with the approaching rain. We had to seek shelter while waiting for the van to pick us up. While making our way back to the town centre, we decided that we shall take a walk at the sensory trail since it was still early for lunch.

Right in front of the visitors' hut next to the jetty sits a small fig tree. This could possibly the only fig tree of this species left.

Fig tree, growing before the beach.

There were quite a number of golden orb web spiders (Nephlia pilipes) along the sensory trail and the ones I saw were at eye level. That makes photo taking much easier and easier for us to get closer to the spider.

Golden orb web spider

After the rain, there were a few large insects resting on tree leaves waiting for their wet body to dry up.

As we come to the end of the sensory trail, we were greeted with a beautiful makeover of a fishing pond. It is now covered with water lily plants on the edges of the pond.

Water lily flower

On a leave of the water lily, I found a caterpillar. I wonder how it got there when the leave is high above water?

Caterpillar on water lily leave

We had a great long lunch session at our usual lunch restaurant, with the usual dishes. It the black pepper crab tastes extremely delicious after missing it for about 1.5 months.

As the government had just revealed the population plan for a possible 7 million population by 2030, I wonder how many of this kampong feelings will remain then?

2030 population plan

Will Pulau Ubin stay the same or will there be a great change in the near future?
Will there still be such cosy, old style dinning places with yummy food to visit?
Do we have to remove the old to make way for the new so that we can keep up with the society?

The Naked Hermit Crabs celebrates Singapore National Day at Chek Jawa

It was a great long weekend, from Thursday till Sunday for all government schools (that includes the teachers). Why?
It is Singapore's 47th Birthday on Thursday, 9 August.

On this National Day weekend, the guided from the Naked Hermit Crabs are delighted to celebrate Singapore's birthday with visitors, local and foreign, the wonders of Chek Jawa through the free monthly public guided walk.

Of course, we have a group photo of the visitors with the national flag of Singapore.

Even the information kiosk for visitors at Chek Jawa has the flag hanging up proudly.

Flag at the information kiosk

Once we alighted at the entrance of Chek Jawa, we were attracted to the rubber tree with a container full of harden latex. Looks like someone has drop by in the early morning to tap this tree.

An example to show rubber tapping at the entrance to Chek Jawa

Soon after the group of wild boars came out from Chek Jawa's entrance. It seems that they went for some mud bath as the lower half of their body is wet and rather muddy.

Wet markings on the lower half of the body

It is interesting to see how well coordinated they were with out speech. Ria as just asking where the piglets are and then, poof, one piglet walked out some distance after we saw the first pig. Then more piglets streamed out of the forested area on the left of the gate. It was quite funny. 

We have about 30 visitors (adult and children) today with 6 guides. I had the opportunity of guiding a group of 5 but shortly after the Jejawi Tower, I only had 2 visitors left. Luckily we had a group at the top of the Jejawi Tower.

My group and I.

It was a nice guiding session and I shared my knowledge with the couple from Switzerland. I found out from them that they have been residing in Singapore since March due to work commitments and they find that there are lots of things to do in Singapore. Hope they continue to explore more natural parts of Singapore.

Along the boardwalk, we had great help from the children in spotting animals in the mangrove habitat. They are always excited about any animals they can find despite the numerous times they have seen them.

Children are the best spotters.

Then I came across a stick insect on the boardwalk. It had probably fallen off from one of the plants nearby. They children got very excited about the stick insect. I would consider this as the special finding for today.

The stick insect on the boardwalk.

The children are so eager to have a feel of the stick insect.

On the mangrove, I spotted a small male mangrove dwarf dragonfly (Raphismia bispina). This dragonfly is classified as uncommon and I have not been seeing them for a very long time. During the last guided walk, Chay Hoon found a female species for me. So I am very heartened to see that they are back in Chek Jawa. (My camera is unable to zoom in close to the dragonfly.)

Male mangrove dwarf

As we reach the coastal side of the boardwalk, we met Marcus and his team conducting the site recee for the upcoming International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS). Ria took the opportunity to get Marcus to explain to our visitors what the ICCS is about while the guides take a short break.

Marcus sharing about ICCS to our visitors

On the coastal boardwalk, the sun cast shadows on the sand.

My swiss visitors on the right.

Over at the hornbill station, Ivan shared about the oriental pied hornbills (Anthracoceros albirostris) to our visitors and how the nesting boxes helped to encourage reproduction, providing useful information for researchers.

Ivan talking about the hornbills

As usual all visitors are invited to create a guestbook page for us at House No. 1. I was too tired from the heat to take pictures.

While leaving Chek Jawa, we noticed that there is a hugh number of cyclists today. The bicycle parking lots could not accomodate all the bicycles and visitors have improvised and placed their bicycles against trees.

Makeshift bicycle parking lots.

After a great lunch, Ivan spotted a lower jaw belonging to a wild boar tied up on a tree trunk. Great documentation for his Monday Morgue page.

It was a great day at this month's Chek Jawa guided walk though it was rather humid on the National Day Weekend.

Next weekend is the last series of morning low tide sessions. Then in September comes the ICCS on one of the Saturdays. In late October would be the expedition for the Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey.

Chek Jawa Guided Walk with Wild Boars, Otters, Hornbills and Snake

It's the school holidays and the families are out to play. The Naked Hermit Crabs had their monthly guided walk at Chek Jawa today. We pushed the walk to the 3rd week for this month because of the school holiday season. Otherwise, our guided walks for Chek Jawa is on the 2nd Saturday of each month.

There were 5 guides for today's walk and we had 70 visitors with us for the walk (yes, I counted... from my photos). We took the group photo in 2 batches since the first group of visitors came early.

Visitors batch 1

Visitors batch 2

Ria and Kok Sheng handled the first batch of visitors separately while Ivan and I took care of the 2nd batch. Ley Kun waited for late comers but there were none.

When we arrived at Chek Jawa, we were greeted by 7 wild boar piglets feeding. It was strange that we did not see mama pig nearby.

7 hungry piglets

Some ate till tired

The guides also met some of our early visitors and Ley Kun shared about rubber tree and rubber tapping.   One of the van drivers used to be a rubber tapper and he used come by in the early morning to give a simple tap on the rubber tree so that visitors can see the latex flowing from the tree into the collecting can. I'm not sure if that driver still do it now.

Sharing about the rubber tree.

While waiting for the second batch of visitors to gather at the visitors' kiosk, Ivan found a huntsman spider (Family Sparassidae).

Huntsman spider

I took a group of about 15 visitors, including 3 students from SAJC who were doing some observation on environmental engagement. The children had a very important task for my walk - they are my animal spotters. Starting on my usual route from the mangrove side, we talked about the well, the Muslim tombstones and also the fruit trees. At the start of the boardwalk, we found some tracks on the mud.

Animal tracks

I asked the children in my group who's footprint they think it belongs to. The children were able to identify the animal correctly by looking at the shape of the footprint. I developed the discussion further by asking them which direction they think the animal was walking from. Again, the children were able to answer the question correctly. I was glad that their parents also help in the thinking process.

The children alerted me to the insects flying around the flower of the nipah plam. I took the opportunity to share with them how important these insects are in pollinating flowers, which allows the plant to produce fruits and/or seeds.

There wasn't much activity in the mangrove. The crabs and mudskippers were not active today. We didn't get to climb the Jejawi tower as the entrance was cordoned off. However we did manage to see a mangrove crab, a few fiddler crabs and some mudskippers.

Over at Kok Sheng's group, they had a wonderful time as they saw the otters swimming, young water monitor lizard, hornbills feeding and a snake. How lucky the group is.

At the end of the walk, the visitors were invited to pen for the guest book.

The children in my group working on their drawings.

After the walk, the guides had the usual spread of food at the sisters' restaurant.

Over at the Changi Point Ferry Terminal, a cat is trying to cool down in a funny manner. It looks like repairing the wheels of the barricade.

That is the cat's way of cooling off.


Read about what the other guides saw:
Kok Sheng - God's Wonderful Creation
Ria Tan - Wild shores of singapore

Hornbills, Wild boars, marine critters and OTTERS at Chek Jawa Shore

Having done guiding at Chek Jawa boardwalk since late 2009, I have never stepped onto the shore before.
Today I got the opportunity to do so thanks to Ley Kun, the Mama Crab of the Naked Hermit Crabs.

Many animals were out and active today at Chek Jawa.
The first animal we encountered were the Wild boars (Sus scrofa) right at the start of the boardwalk.
The piglets still have their watermelon strips on.

Wild boar

They were looking for food for quite sometime here.
Reason: Because of the Oriental pied-hornbills (Anthracoceros albirostris) that were feeding at a tree above.

Find the hornbill.

From the Jejawi tower, we can see the exposed shore of Chek Jawa.

Finally, after so many guided walks at Chek Jawa, I got to see the Oriental whip snake (Ahaetulla prasina) up close. It was hanging from some plant at the plant arch leading to the seagrass lagoon.

Oriental whip snake

There were traces of wild boar digging near the sonneratia tree.

On the shore, preparations have already been done to avoid visitors from trampling all over the place. There were various stations setup to show visitors the marine animals that can be seen on the shore.
There was a Cuthona nudibranch (Cuthona sibogae).

Blue dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina)

Many Garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra) were found to show visitors.

Garlic bread sea cucumber

The highlight of the day for me was not the shore walk but Otters!
A pair of otters were spotted on the shore to the right of the pathway leading to "Chek Jawa Rear" beacon. There have been sightings of otters at Chek Jawa and I finally got to see the wild otters at location. Ley Kun and I spent a good 10 minutes admiring them. Many visitors were also delighted to see the otters at that time.

Are they the Smooth coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata)?

Soon it was time to go and at the hut, we met the wild boars again.
This time the piglets were having their milk break while the older siblings were having a lazy rest.

Milk time!

Lazing around

Back at the Changi Point Ferry Terminal, a very long queue was formed by visitors trying to make their way to Pulau Ubin. Look a the photo to see what I meant.

This is THE bumboat queue.

I wonder what is so special today? Or does this happen every Sunday?