We arrived before sunrise, with huge ships passing along the Jong Fairway next to the island. Vessels going to and from Pulau Bukom, Pasir Panjang Container Terminals and even Jurong Island must use this Fairway.
For the first time, I explored a different part of Pulau Jong today. I discovered it had lots of rock pools with interesting marine life in them. I also had a closer look at the rocky cliffs and coastal forest of this last unspoilt island of Singapore.
Today, I decided, for the first time, to check out Pulau Jong's northern shore (facing Pulau Bukom). It is very rocky!
But there are lots of rock pools with interesting marine life in them. I've not seen so many rock pools on any other shore!
I saw
Giant carpet anemones,
Frilly anemones, colourful
zoanthids and even hard corals. Although the pools mean these animals are kept submerged even at low tide, they have to contend with the
Ferocious reef crabs that also live in the pools.
Near the low water mark, the underside of rocks and stones are coated with living animals.
There are living corals on the reef flats, and the rocky cliffs are cloaked in a coastal forest.
There are not many corals on Pulau Jong's southern reef flat and even less on the rocky northern reef flat. But what I saw today, looked alright. The most common corals were from
Family Merulinidae, mostly small but healthy looking colonies.
Boulder pore corals are also abundant here. Most were alright although some colonies were pale.
I also saw a few
Disk corals,
Anemone corals, and
Cauliflower corals.
Back on the south facing reef flats near Pulau Sebarok, the petrol station of our port, there remain lots of large leathery soft corals and they looked alright today.
I came across only one bleaching hard coral, and some soft corals that had yellowish parts.
Pulau Jong's cliffs are beautifully patterned.
Mother Nature's art! The lovely pebbles are formed as the cliffs crumble into the sea.
These squarish rocks obviously shattered in a recent rock slide. It will take some time before the waves make them smooth.
There has been a recent rock slide leaving a blank space near the top of the island. I first noticed this on our survey in
Jun 2017.
On the north facing shore, there is another rock slide that has already been covered by a blanket of tough ferns.
This tree that fell over has regenerated vertical branches from its horizontal trunk!
There were still patches of
Sickle seagrass and they were fresh and green. During our survey in
Jun 2018, they were mostly badly burnt. I didn't come across any Spoon seagrass today.
Today, Nathaniel Soon is starting his work to document our surveys as part of his International Year of the Reef internship. Bravo!
A last look at the 'char siew pau' island because of its cute dumpling shape. Pulau Jong has a huge reef flat that is exposed at low spring tide. This reef flat together with the domed island is said to resemble the silhouette of a Chinese sailing junk, thus 'Jong'.
Pulau Jong is among the last untouched islands in Singapore. It has not been reclaimed or directly impacted by development. Pulau Jong is what all our Southern islands looked like before they were reclaimed.
Future of Pulau Jong?
Pulau Jong is one of
the existing natural shores that may be impactedby the
landuse plan by the Ministry of National Developmentreleased in Jan 2013 in response to the Populations White Paper with a 6.9 million population target. The dotted margined blue areas are "Possible Future Reclamation". The other shores impacted by this plan include Pulau Hantu, Terumbu Pempang Darat, Terumbu Pempang Tengah and Terumbu Semakau.
Let's hope the last of our unspoilt islands, Pulau Jong will stay safe until we return next year.
Photos by others on this trip
Marcus Ng
Liz Lim
People on this trip: Lisa Lim, Nicholas Yap, Jonathan Tan, Lim Yaohui
