Hynavian

Before ranting on my day at Chek Jawa, special thanks to usagijen for the cute keyboard pad. I’ve been lazy and only took a cute photo of the doggie just. Now where’s the packet of dried mango that she gave? Why isn’t it in the photo? My family and I’ve already finished the packet of dried mango so it’s no longer here anymore…Bwahaha.

I hereby name it “Gou Gou”

I visited Chek Jawa on Sunday afternoon for my school’s field trip. Chek Jawa is the name given to the area that is located off the eastern coast of Pulau Ubin (which is a small island located to the north east of Singapore). To get there, my team mates and I had to take a ferry from Changi Point Ferry Terminal to reach the island of Pulau Ubin.

It’s an outdated map of Singapore but I’ll just use it to brief show my point.

Getting to the Changi Point Ferry Terminal was no easy task for me. Since I live in Clementi (which is to the West of Singapore) I had to take a bus to the nearest MRT station so that I can alight at Tanah Merah MRT station before taking bus number 2 to Changi Village. On reaching Changi Village, I had to locate the Ferry Terminal (which was fortunately near) before taking a ferry to Pulau Ubin as Chek Jawa is located off the eastern coast of Pulau Ubin.

Due to some unforseen circumstances, I arrived late but fortunately the team did not set off yet. Goodness, it took me around 2 hours to reach the Ferry Terminal. @_@ Actually I never knew that there was a place called “Chek Jawa” in Singapore, so when the lecturer mentioned, I decided to sign up with a friend for this field trip.

First up is the jetty. There are many boats waiting to ferry passengers to and fro from the ferry terminal to the island of Pulau Ubin. They’re lined up orderly while the boat drivers wait patiently for their turn to ferry groups of passengers across. The boat man will only do the trip if he can gather 12 passengers. Now why 12 passengers? The total fee for a one way boat trip is S$30, so the fees will be divided equally among the 12 passengers. Paying S$2.50, I board the boat and enjoyed the sea breeze as it drove us to our destination, the island of Pulau Ubin.

The weather did not look good (black clouds in the sky) when we reached the island but we pushed on and hired mini vans to drive us to the gates of Chek Jawa. It was a bumpy van ride as the paths are uneven. What shocked me most were the dogs. They’re living side by side with the humans and they roam freely on the island. The van drivers had to be vigilant to avoid knocking into any of them. I tried taking photos but none turn out well, so on to the next spot.

We were fortunate to have a very friendly driver. He shared with us a little of his knowledge regarding the flora of Pulau Ubin and he even showed us how he used to tap rubber from a rubber tree. Rubber trees are actually not local flora and the driver told us that there are actually rubber trees that are so old they can grow till a humongous size. Scrapping the outer layer of the bark lightly diagonally from the top to below, rubber latex would flow very slowly and be collected into the cup. And when I say very slowly, take my words for it as it took me a few minutes for the first drop of rubber latex to hit the cup and the other drops come real slowly too.

Entering the gates of Chek Jawa, our 2 friendly tutors briefed us before the tour begins. We came at the “wrong time”, as in it was neither low nor high tide. The tides are coming in and it would be high tide in a few hours time. Because the sea water was already steadily rising, we’re unable to spot the many promised marine life like corals and starfishes which we should be able to see during low tide. No starfish and pretty corals but hey, I spotted mud skippers and fiddler crabs instead.

Wanna make a guess what this plant is? Answer: show

I face the difficulty of capturing wildlife in my photos because they are firstly, too far away, secondly, too small, and thirdly, mobile. The fiddler crabs are how should I describe…hmm…coin size. Picture yourself looking at a coin from a bridge. Hence, I need to power up and zoom in a lot just to capture them.

The above are tiny mud skippers. I was lazy for this shot and I didn’t bother to zoom in so they’re very tiny. They actually remind me of those lizards that crawl on the walls at home because they look really similar. One of my tutors explained that the biggest mud skippers can grow to be bigger than the palm size of humans and that they are carnivores, where they would feed on smaller mud skippers to survive.

As for the fiddler crabs, I finally decided to make full use of technology and zoomed in to capture them. Notice that some fiddler crabs have extremely large claws on one hand while the claw on the other hand is not as visible. This characteristic is typical of male fiddler crabs as their claw size would denote their level of sexiness. So the larger the claw, the sexier it is. Which do you think is the sexist male fiddler crab? XD

Moving from coast to forest, we entered the mangrove forest. The mangrove swamps emit some stinky smell and 1 of our tutors explained what that smell was (caused by some chemical reactions that I cannot remember) and we continued moving along the bridge while trying to spot any “wild” animals. Sadly, we did not see any bores or snakes but we found many Atap-chee fruits around in the forest. If you’re a fan of ice-kachang, you would love the below fruit!

The below is taken from the top of a towel that I have climbed (approximately 5 stories high). The nicely laid wood was the path that I followed. By the time the group got down from the towel, it was already 5pm+ and we had to leave Chek Jawa before 6pm since it closes around then.

Something “co-incidental” happened while everyone was climbing the stairs up the tower. That is, our phones all rang with various tones of sms….seems like Singtel do not cover us over there and I received a series of sms from other neighboring countries (eg: Malaysia) regarding their charges for telephone roaming services. O_o

We barely made it to Chek Jawa’s entrance cum exit before 6pm and we took the same van back to Pulau Ubin’s jetty. The van that we hired earlier will ferry a group of 8 to and fro from the jetty to the entrance of Chek Jawa at a cost of S$4 per head (total cost of hiring a van for a to and fro trip is approximately S$32). Once again boarding the jetty back to Singapore mainland, I bid farewell to Pulau Ubin in the evening, just in time to catch a sunset picture of the sea.

The trip was an eye opener. I never knew that Singapore actually had Atap-chee or a mangrove swamp. Though it’s a pity that I didn’t get to see the corals or starfishes due to the rising tide, I’ve learn lots from just a single trip. Perhaps, I should revisit the place again during the holidays and when it is low tide so as to be able to see more marine life.

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