Sunrises, sunsets, kayaking and other adventures
We were going to join our friends for a short social paddle to Pulau Ubin at 8am. Decided to sneak in a bit of training and watch the sunrise before.
Lovely paddle this morning. Nice cool breeze; felt good to get back in the water. It’s been two months!
We’re not massive fitness people, truth be told. We exercise more to explore, than to work out. Which is why I give massive kudos to folks who can, week after week, put in miles on their kayaks and bicycles. We lose motivation after a while if we don’t get a change in scenery. 😂
This past Sunday though, we decided to try a new cycle route: from Pasir Ris to Marina Barrage, through the Ponggol-Hougang-Kallang park connector.
We set off at 5am, in the hopes of making it to town to see the sunrise. It was lovely pedaling in the dark, through quiet streets. It was cool out too – as cool as it can get in Singapore anyway – and drizzly half the section. We rode past neighborhoods we’d never visited before, and bumped into my coworker who was also out getting his cycling fix in. We hit the northern end of the Singapore river – more canal, really – and followed its curves until the lit Singapore Flyer came into view.
The sky was getting light by then. But with the low clouds, we weren’t going to get any color. No matter. It was still a lovely ride past the Indoor Stadium and across the Marina Barrage to where the glass structures of the cloud forest and flower domes were. We rode past dozens of collegian dragon boaters warming up by the riverside before they hit the water, past joggers and other cyclists who were also getting early morning starts.
When we hit the front of Marina Bay Sands, it was decision time. Back the same route, or up through East Coast Park and through the Bedok Reservoir, or should we just hug the coast and take the long way home?
Our legs felt strong, and we didn’t particularly fancy riding back along busy sidewalks that doubled up as bike paths, so we opted for the scenic route, stopping first by the MacDonalds along the park to escape the rain and sate our rumbling stomachs.
Fun route back. Brought back memories of a couple decades ago, when as teenagers with tons more energy, we’d take the same coastal ride from Pasir Ris, starting at midnight, then returning only at sunrise, stopping at different 24-hour coffee shops to refuel and shoot the breeze. Haha.
Still stuck on this tiny island of Singapore, and striving to enjoy the little things. We took last Monday afternoon off, to take a spin through Gardens by the Bay and the Chihully glass exhibit in the gardens.
Beautiful evening for a stroll.
So grateful for the opportunity to explore another area of Singapore this past Thursday: Pulau Hantu and Semakau, the latter which is Singapore’s first offshore and now remaining landfill.
We had to go through immigration to board a ferry to Hantu – it felt almost like international travel again, except that our identity cards sufficed, even though we had also brought our passports, just in case.
It was a gorgeous day on the water – the skies were a brilliant blue, with voluminous cumulus congestus clouds, a sure sign of rain to come. But the rains stayed away, even as we heard the ominous rumblings of thunder grow ever more urgent right after noon. We could see grey walls of rain in the far off distance, on the main island, but the skies remained clear where we were.
Which is to say it was a scorching hot day. I was just wearing a tank top initially, but after just a half hour lounging in my kayak, waiting for the others to set up their inflatable boats, I had to pull on my long sleeve rash guard to get some relief from the sun. Dipping into the water helped too. The tide was still low mid morning, so we could see the blanket of soft corals in the little bay on the southwestern side of Pulau Hantu. The water was silty – Huey said it is generally much better in the latter part of the year, but not having been able to see any coral reefs at all for over a year, this was a treat.
Our paddle wasn’t terribly long, just under 10km, but it was a beautiful one. We crossed the narrow strait between Pulau Hantu and Semakau, then leisurely meandered our way around the shallow coastal mangroves. Unlike on Pulau Ubin and even Khatib Bongsu, the mangrove trees here were sturdier, with broad gnarled trunks. Brown kites soared overhead, while in the waters we spotted the occasional schools of tiny silvery fish. A few in the group even saw a small black tip shark darting away in the shallows.
After, when we got back the Hantu, the rest of us lounged around – some seeking relief in the water; others went out for a bit more kayaking – while chef Desmond Foo whipped up some delicious spicy buttermilk chicken and prawn paste drumsticks on the barbie, accompanied with homemade toasted focaccia and corn veloute soup with bacon bits. Finished with super ripe mangos and coffee. Bliss. Especially since right after we returned to land, the government sent out a directive banning social bbqs for the next two weeks as we grapple with a rise in community cases again.
When the time and the tides align, one of our favorite paddles is to explore the four rivers of Pulau Ubin, where we’d cross over from Pasir Ris, and cut up from the southern side of the Island via Sungei Jelutong up through to the northern tip, then paddle back down through the island again on a couple other rivers.
On Sunday, we did just that. The gloomy weather predictions had mostly fizzled, such that we were offered a clear sunny window to mid morning. The crossing was easy – on flat waters under a partly cloudy sky after a beautiful orange-pink sunrise, and all too soon, we’d left behind the drone of power boats in the channel and entered another world, filled with the melodic chirpings of unseen birds and incessant calls of crickets.
Shan, as always, was our unflappable guide through the rivers, although on this day KayakAsia was also leading several groups up through the rivers as well, so we used them as our guideposts as we overtook the groups, exchanging pleasantries and greetings with our friends as we passed.
We made good time, even with stopping for a short snack by the narrow silver of beach on the northern side of the island (next to fresh wild boar tracks!) and floating around in the thick of mangroves for around 20 minutes or so, waiting for the tide to rise just high enough for us to paddle over a couple of half submerged tree branches that blocked our paths.
By the time we made it back out the southern end of the island via Sungei Puaka, we could see thick grey clouds overhead. And by the time we hit Pasir Ris and looked back, Pulau Ubin was shrouded in mist; the storm had descended upon the island. We got lucky; a few passing puffs of rain clouds hit us as we got our kayaks out of the water, but it was only after Jeff and I had just finished washing our kayaks that the rain really started to come down – just in time for a warm shower and lunch!
We went with some friends last Saturday on a KayakAsia led paddle from Sentosa to the Southern Islands. What a beautiful morning to set off!
The currents were mild on the way over, and we enjoyed blue skies and clear waters. The tides were really low when we got to Kusu Island though, such that we had to carry our kayaks midway into the lagoon – no soaking in the cool emerald green waters in the inner lagoon this time for us.
After a bit of a morning tea where we enjoyed fresh curry puffs, homemade four berry tarts, tangerines and coffee, we clambered back into our inflatable kayaks to cross over to Lazarus Island.
There, we poked around the tidal pools, admiring the sea anemones, nudibranches, and moon jellyfish.
All too soon, it was time to make the slog back. I suppose it was too much to ask for mild currents again! My right arm was tired by the time we made it back to shore, having to pull against the currents the entire trip back. At least I earned those beers after!
Our friends Shan and Desmond were inspired the other day. Let’s do a gourmet kayaking trip, they suggested. That is, load our kayaks full of provisions and drinks, and paddle from Singapore to Pulau Ubin, and cook up a storm there.
Desmond, a professional cook by training, was more than up for the challenge. His menu, ambitious by normal standards, blew our minds for this being an outdoor setting:
We set off bright and early from Pasir Ris. The weather window looked clear for us in the morning, with ominous threats of thunderstorms later in the day – hopefully when we’re back safely on the mainland and all cleaned up.
After a leisurely paddle to Ubin, we beached up by the old PA chalets and unloaded our kayaks. Desmond quickly got to work, starting a fire on his charcoal stove to heat up the soup and grill the steaks.
Meanwhile, the rest of us got busy with setting up our drinks table. Champagne, Bordeaux, espresso martinis, cold brew boulevardier, gin and tonics with freshly smashed peppercorns…
Desmond truly outdid himself! After all that food and the drinks, it was a struggle to paddle back to Pasir Ris. Haha, but what a fun morning out with a fantastic bunch of kayaking and food buddies.
I barely took any photographs with my cameras this year except on my phone. Once Covid shut down all travel, we mostly just hunkered down at home. So since March, all our exploration has been local, or virtually, via books and movies and TV shows.
I managed to read 61 books to date this year (maybe 61 by year end if I get started on any one of the three books on my phone now).
Top Fiction
Top Non-Fiction
If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen.
I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water has seeped through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean would become solid. Fighting the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities.
The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, bright, and at the same time ghostly, shadowly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.
Here’s hoping for the resumption of in person adventures in 2021!
My company gave us Friday the 13th off, as one of the 6 “wellness” days they’d designated for the remainder of the year, as a response to the burnout some of us was feeling from the extended global lockdown courtesy of Covid-19. We made the most of it – 8 of us got together to do a clean up paddle of Sungei Khatib Bongsu with Kayakasia.
According to our guide Ling, the Khatib Bongsu mangrove is a very special place, not least because it, along with Palau Ubin, is one of the remaining untouched mangrove forests in Singapore. Today, mangrove forests make up just 0.5% of the total land mass area in Singapore, down from 13% in the 1820s. Sungei Khatib Bongsu and its maze of estuarine channels is one of the last few un-dammed rivers in Singapore, and the only way to explore it is by kayak. The government though, has announced plans to develop the area into a nature park, ala Sungei Buloh. Having experienced the quiet, unspoiled beauty of it yesterday, I agree with Ling and the Kayakasia crew that it’ll be very sad and a real pity if that means cleared trees, transformed habitats and built-up board walks for crowds to throng through. I don’t want a “natural landscape design”. I just want natural!
Our journey began immediately right off the canal. After some quick paddling techniques tips for those of us new to kayaking, Ling steered us down a narrow waterway. The drone of motorcars disappeared, replaced by the more melodic chirping of crickets and calls of the dozens of bright blue kingfishers that darted about us. Though some had initially been fighting off yawns from their early morning alarms, everyone had now perked up and awed by the lush greenery, a markedly different world from what we were used to.
Back in the 70s, prawn farms dotted the area. We could still see remnants: the half rotted stakes and collapsed sluiced gates that we squeezed past as we navigated the lush labyrinth of waterways. Otherwise, the only other signs of inhabitation now were the plastic bottles and styrofoam bits that the tide brought in. 😦
I’ve paddled the mangrove rivers of Pulau Ubin at least a dozen times already this year, but this mangrove forest at Khatib Bongsu is really something else! Kayakasia bills this as one of the most beautiful river trails in Singapore, and I have to agree. We paddled past gigantic fig trees, traversed in and around a mix of different flooded forests. They seemed oversized compared to the more delicate habitats on Palau Ubin.
Ling knows this area by heart now, having led hundreds of tours here through her 6.5 years with Kayakasia, but for the rest of us, our sense of direction were completely out of whack. I had absolutely no idea where we were, for she’d randomly direct us off a narrow but free waterway into a thicket of trees, or placidly slink under a mess of branches. We were not nearly as graceful or deft with our paddles, and the mangrove was often pierced with shrieks and laughter as people smacked themselves in the face with the low hanging branches as they tried to extricate their kayaks from exposed roots that seemed to loom up suddenly in the middle of nowhere.
But that’s the beauty of kayaking in the mangrove forests. There were literally no paths to follow. We could literally chart our own journey.
After 3.5 hours exploring the nooks and crannies of the mangroves, Ling led us out to the coast. We reluctantly left behind the glassy flat waters and the blissful shade of the trees and promptly met with chop and wake from the half dozen wakeboarding boats gunning down the river. It was a bit of a rude shock to the group, for now they also had to contend with a head on current and wind as they re-adjusted to coastal kayaking. After the leisurely paddle of the mangroves, we had to work against the current to paddle the 4km to our ending point at Sembawang Park. We did have a bit of a break midway through though, stopping at a tiny sandy beach (sadly littered with bits of plastic and other detritus the tides left behind) for a breather and late morning tea of curry puffs and fruits.
Overall, a magical experience, and a great team bonding to boot! And I will say this again: for all the grief about not being able to travel, I am grateful that this lockdown has enabled me to more fully explore where I call home. We may not boast of stunning vistas and soaring mountains, but I’ve a newfound appreciation of our mangrove ecosystem.
We’ve plenty of days off to clear, since we are still stuck in Singapore, so last Friday, we took it off to explore the Southern Islands of Singapore by kayak.
The Southern Islands, comprising St John’s, Kusu, Lazarus, and Deringer, are just a short hop away from Sentosa. We used to row to them weekly when we trained with the Singapore Paddle Club, in 6-seater outriggers. I wouldn’t feel comfortable attempting the crossing in our little foldable Oru kayaks though, because the waters around the islands can be insanely choppy, with ferocious washing-machine currents.
In KayakAsia’s sturdy double inflatable kayaks though, punching through the waves was a thrilling experience.
And what a beautiful day to be out! We had cloud cover most of the morning, so we were spared the heat from the sun. And the waters this time of the year were gloriously clear, such that we could pretend that we were away in the remote islands of the Philippines instead of just mere kms away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Singapore.
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