Sunday, January 31, 2016

We reel in a shark on Sisters' Island!

Date: Jan 30, 2016
Trip #13
Weather: Fair, sunny at times, rainy on return leg 
Waters: Sometimes choppy, and shallow (4 ft!) in some parts out in open sea; high tide in the Sisters' Island lagoon 
On board: C, A, Uncle Wong, D, KH, J and ZQ
New on board: Wet bags 




This black-tip reef shark was caught by 10-year-old ZQ, who was on the
beach, practising the art of casting a line under his dad's supervision. 
It is still a baby, about half a metre long - and a good sign of the state 
of the Sisters' Island Marine Park.

The junior angler, in Primary 5, also regularly solves Rubik's Cube puzzles
in under a minute. He took 42 seconds on the outward journey on the
 boat, and cried foul over Uncle Wong's timekeeping. He claims 
20 seconds is his best time. 

This must surely count as the trip with the most encounters with the wild side of Singapore so far! 

We are talking about catching a baby black-tip reef shark and a parrotfish and having a face-off with one of the islands' resident macaques, which got its hands on one of our bags of chips. It boldly came within a metre and a half of the whole group of us, only to drop the bag when we shouted at it. It looked to be an aggressive alpha male.

After its failed attempt at chip theft, it shimmied up a coconut palm and glowered at us from about 10 metres up. Two other members of its troop also stared at us from trees nearby. They dispersed after a while, perhaps convinced we weren't going to leave our food and drinks unattended.



After that close encounter with the macaque, some of us armed ourselves with
sticks to ward off further attempts at snack theft. 
Chips, nuts, wine, champagne and good conversation. It was a lovely afternoon,
not too hot, but the air was still. 

Meanwhile, angler KH, using chopped prawns as bait, reeled in a parrotfish, which, like the shark, was released alive.  



The white stuff near the mouth is the chunk of bait.




We packed up to leave the island, and bagged and binned our trash. As we waded into the lagoon to load the boat, the macaques reappeared and made immediate tracks for the bin. Their leader effortlessly pushed the swing cover of the bin open and their feast began - green tea, loose tobacco from C's empty pack of Marlboros (yes!) and leftover grapes and groundnuts. The mess they left around the bin made it look like we were the litterbugs.

I think the simians got the drill already: Wait till the humans leave. Raid the bin.

NParks, are you reading this? The islands need monkey-proof bins! [See post-script.]

Our return trip took nearly two hours because of a stretch of really shallow water near Pulau Sebarok and Pulau Semakau. We could see the sandy and rocky bottom among the seaweed. C slowed the boat down for nearly 20 minutes till we were well past Junk Island. (See map here; enlarge map so Junk Island is identified.) 

We usually pass the island (a small circular patch of tree-covered land) on our port side on the return trip, but today, we passed it on our starboard because a storm was brewing on our usual route. This was where the water was shallow.  C's note to self: Stick to the usual route. 

We ran into rain on the return trip anyway, and everyone huddled under bath towels to blunt the sting of the rain drops.

Post-script
I wrote to NParks to give them a heads-up on the failed rubbish bins, and told them that the aggressive monkeys somewhat spoiled our visit to the island. NParks replied fairly quickly to thank me for the tipoff;  regarding the monkeys, they said (somewhat condescendingly) that the "monkeys" are macaques (we knew that), are native to Singapore (we also knew that), and that we are not to stare them down, feed them or engage them in any way to prevent attacks (we knew that as well). In short, I guess, NParks won't do anything about them (and I had in mind shipping them off to another of Singapore's offshore islands that are off visitors' radars). I think we won't be visiting Sisters Island that often from now. Who likes spending island time being wary about where the monkeys are?? 

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Back on Pulau Hantu Besar

Date: Jan 16, 2016
Trip #12
Weather: Cloudy, brief afternoon showers  
Waters: Fairly calm; the tide stayed high through the afternoon 
On board: C, A, J1, J2, and R
New on board: Pelican case (waterproof) for our phones 

We planned to leave for the marina at 11am, but "delays" happened, so by the time we got to Pulau Hantu Besar, it was nearly 3pm. We topped up Little Wanderer's petrol tank today. That last tank had  lasted us around half a dozen trips, and there was still a quarter tank left, and this was our 12th trip in just under six months. No, we haven't got any numbers on the rate this boat drinks. 

We landed on Pulau Hantu Besar after an uneventful journey out under a cloudy sky. The island was crawling with NTU students from an outdoor activity club, there to spend the night after a day of "team-building games". No, the island wasn't quietly idyllic today. 

Just as we were done unloading our gear, it rained. Thankfully, it was only a short shower, but we stayed under one of those shelters provided by the good people of Sentosa Development Corp. There under the shelter, to music from the Beach Boys, we fried up sausages, bacon, tomatoes on the vine and asparagus. 


Under that one shelter not occupied by the hordes of NTU undergraduates. 

The Bauhinia blakeana, or Hong Kong Orchid Tree, fresh after the rain.

Fishing was fruitless today. Nothing bit at either the island's jetty or the breakwater fringing the lagoon where the boat was anchored. I think the footnote here was that we didn't bring any bait...  


Nope, the fish didn't like the bits of sausage we took from our picnic stash. 

Fishing off the breakwater lost us a set of hooks and a weight.
We came up empty. 
As we packed up to leave the island, we got help from a bloke who was camping there for the night with his Japanese wife. There were five of us, so we didn't really need the help with our assortment of bags, BBQ grill and stuff, but he volunteered and was friendly. We gave him a beer for his effort! 



Saturday, January 09, 2016

Beefing up our fishing supplies

We went to Beach Road today, Singapore's hub for anglers, and bought more fish hooks and fish pliers so we can remove our catches from the hooks more easily.

We visited two shops (Hong Guan Pro Fishing and Joe's Fishing Tackle), 'fessed up to being utter beginners in fishing and got some help selecting what we needed.

Our haul today.

We felt like fish out of water there - pun wholly intended - and really unschooled. The customers there were mostly middle-aged, and browsing among a staggering array of arcane-looking doo-dads. Baits that claim to be able to change colour, baits that looked like real frogs, fish and squid; there were also rods, reels, ice boxes, frozen bait... you name it. 

C showed us some photos of his colleague M, who has just returned from one of his angling pilgrimages in New Zealand. His catches are a metre long, and his photos are all captioned with technical information on the kind of rod and reel he used.  

We have so much more to learn, though C and I believe we won't go far beyond the "fishing for fun" phase. It just adds a dimension to our times on the boat, and there's the promise of grilling something we caught.
  


Friday, January 01, 2016

A sundown boat trip, 2016's first!

Date: Jan 1, 2016
Trip #11
Weather: Clear, after afternoon showers  
Waters: Very calm 
On board: C, A, J1, J2, and R
New on board: A frying pan, to use atop the Weber grill (to save elbow grease washing the grate!) 

Happy new year. 

The plan was to head out to Pulau Hantu and have a picnic there. But Man plans, God laughs, right?  Bursts of sunshine in the East Coast in the late morning gave way to overcast skies, and by the time we were ready to head out to the marina, everything was grey. We drove to the marina nonetheless, and it began raining en route...  It looked like it was raining heavily out at sea when we emerged from the Marina Coastal Expressway and looked out to the water at Keppel. 

We didn't even bother calling to ask the marina staff to launch the boat, and headed straight for the marina's bistro, where we had a nice lunch. The skies stubbornly kept that grey cloak on, so we called off the boat trip, and spent time at the bar, shooting pool, playing darts and having some drinks. 

At nearly 5pm, the skies cleared up, and the waters were very calm. Courtesy of fluid plans,  we headed in the direction of Puteri Cove and dropped anchor. 


The light was so flat, this photo is better off being in black and white.
Taken from the bow, just off the SAF live firing area.

C fired up the Weber grill and cooked eggs sunny side up and some rashers of bacon, while the boys opened up some bubbly. This was New Year's Day after all. 


The new frying pan saves quite a bit of
post-trip scrubbing! In another first, we set
up the stowaway table of our Chaparral 250

J2 and R set up the fishing rod and reel, but hauled in nothing, despite putting in some bacon fat as bait. 

But no matter. With 91.3 FM playing, a good time was had by all as we floated on mirror-like water just off the SAF live firing area. (It is Jan 1, and the soldier boys were taking a break, right?) 


Getting more confident with each fishing attempt. 


Another good day out on Little Wanderer, a trip that started at 5pm,
a lot later than usual for us. Below: A clip I made to give a 360-degree view
of what was around us. As usual, the trio at aft were not cooperative...




The day didn't end even after we returned to the marina. While C and I gave the boat its usual post-trip hose-down, J1, J2 and R cast a fishing line into the waters of the marina. J1 hauled in a pufferfish! And as we still had "issues" with freeing our catches, C stepped in to take the hook off the terrified fish. See the action here: