Kayaking to Sungei Khatib Bongsu at Low Tide

Kayaking to Sungei Khatib Bongsu has been on my list to kayak to ever since our great experience of kayaking at Sungei Simpang, because Sungei Khatib Bongsu is only 1 km southeast away from Sungei Simpang, and has similar environment.

We finally made the trip on Sunday July 23, 2023.  We kayaked 11 km in 3 hour 45 minutes and visited Sungei Simpang on the way back.

paddling trail to Khatib Bongsu

We launched our kayak Emma pretty early ~ 8am from Sembawang Park, despite the fact that low tide was 8:26am. This was because that it was forecasted that it would rain in the afternoon.

Low tide made the mangrove swamp inaccessible, and limited our paddling range. 

Low tide and the fast changing weather, however, provided unique opportunities to see a different world at Sungei Khatib Bonsu and Johor Strait!

The landscape of the shoreline changed, beaches appeared, underwater rocks emerged.

We witnessed fish jumping. A school of fishes jumped at shallow water, another school of tiny fishes breached water at the left front our kayak. We also saw a big fish breached water like a whale! They happened so randomly and sporadic, we just let the thrills come to us, without trying to take photos.

Another show of the day was bird fishing.

The beautiful white tailed tropic birds, gracefully seesawing across the rivers at their mouths and dived for fishes from time to time. These white birds with black stripes, have a long tail and a slender body. They dived from a height of ~ 10m which made me wonder how they could know the water was not too shallow.

There were quite a few collared kingfishers along our paddling trail on this day. What a view it was when they flew in front of our kayak as the Sun shone on them to reveal their shiny bright blue plumage. Several collared kingfishers simply rested on mangrove branches, and dived for fishes as opportunities came.

Two big birds rested on two wood columns near the mouth of Sungei Khatib Bongsu. We could easily tell from their silhouettes, that they were herons. A closer look revealed that they were Great Billed Herons. I took many photos of them as we paddled toward them. They flew away one after another as our big yellow Emma was too close for their comfort. Their take-off is always a thrill for us, and their graceful glide in the sky a treat to the eyes.

When we paddled by a sand bar at Sungei Simpang, a pair of great billed herons landed on it. They stood there looked left and right. When the rain drops started to fall, they flew away one after another. Not sure if they were the pair we saw earlier. 

A small surprise of the trip was that we saw white bellied sea eagles and changeable hawk eagles in the same area, a first for me. I know that white bellied sea eagles are resident hawks at Johor Strait, but not the changeable hawk eagles.

Despite the frequent sightings of white bellied sea eagles, I was thrilled to see the magnificent bird gliding overhead at Khatib Bongsu. In fact there were three of them, seemingly a family.

A few hundred meters away, another family of eagles - changeable hawk eagles, three of them on two different trees. One perched on bare branch, easy to see, the other two were at a higher branch and seemed much larger. My guess was that the two larger hawk eagles were parents, and the solo hawk eagle was the eaglet.

What a feast for bird watching! But there was more.

The fast changing weather on that day brought another treat, or mystery - we saw the shadow of a  white bellied sea eagle in the sky!

What a paddling experience - the beautiful, the unexpected and the mysterious of the wilderness. 

shadow in the sky!

The trip started with hazy Sun

What a beautiful view

Notes

1. Weather varied a lot during the trip, from hazy, to cloudy, to sunny, rainy and to sunny again. It rained for about only 15 minutes or so when we were paddling from 8km marker to 9km marker, and in very narrow strip. 

2. Lily took a few photos of sea eagles overhead, some photos had the shadow in the sky, some did not. 

3. The reason one can see the shadow in the sky is because the the cloud near the eagle was acting as a reflective surface for the sunlight. When light from the sun hits the cloud, it scattered in various directions. Some of this scattered light bounces back towards the ground, and some of it reaches the camera's lens, capturing the image of the eagle's shadow in the sky. There are other explanations - such as reflection by ice crystals in the cloud .

 

Bright Colored Kingfishers at Singapore Quarry - by Lily

We had hiked in the vicinity of Diary Farm Nature Park  many times, but somehow, we have never started the hike from the park. Last Saturday we decided to check it out. Arriving at the park in mid-morning, we entered the woods via the Wallace trail.

The trail begins with paved roads, then become unpaved and winding up and down in the dense woods. I liked it right away as it is well shaded and varied terrain. Eventually we reached an open meadow surrounded by several quarry walls, known as the dairy farm quarry. Several groups of bikers were resting under the trees and chatting. Beyond this were only mountain bike roads for them, we the hikers had to turn around. 

Our next destination was Singapore Quarry. As we entered the quarry area, we noticed a group of people holding big lenses at the viewing deck. Just then a big kingfisher landed on the tree branch right in front of us. I have never seen such a big kingfisher at such a close distance, I was captivated. It has a long red beak, light brown head, bright yellow neck and breast, and cobalt blue back. This is the stork-billed kingfisher. Taking out my phone, I started taking pictures right away. It gracefully perched on a tree branch for quite a while. It then turned, glided down with wings spread revealing the light blue color underneath. Such a beauty! In fact there were two of them in the area, and we saw them diving into the pond to catch fishes. I managed to capture an incredible shot of one in mid-flight, and I even recorded their melodic chirping as they hopped among the trees. It was an exhilarating experience to witness these magnificent birds up close — a stroke of sheer luck.

Photo of Stork-billed kingfisher from Allan's big camera

photos of Stork-billed kingfisher from my cellphone

The size of Singapore quarry seems to be just perfect. The red quarry walls surround a gem like pond. With the blue sky, white clouds, green vegetation, and red stones, all the color filled my view with joy and serenity.

Retracing our steps, we embarked on a trail that led us further uphill. The path was steep yet strangely familiar. It wasn't long before we found ourselves at the summit of Bukit Timah Hill—the highest point in Singapore at 163 meters above sea level. As customary, we touched the stone marking this significant milestone before beginning our descent.

Our hike in Diary Farm Nature Park offered unexpected delights, from the enchanting encounter with the stork-billed kingfisher to the breathtaking views of the Singapore Quarry. It was a reminder that exploration can lead to incredible experiences and unveil hidden gems even in familiar surroundings.

"Don't Give Up on the Real World"

"Don't Give Up on The Real World" is a slogan from Nikon Peru's campaign to remind people that "our world is full of amazing natural places that are often stranger than fiction." In this campaign, they showed incredible photos of natural places taken by photographers using Nikon cameras. In each photo, a imagined prompt was given, as if they were taunting those who use AI to generate images.

For example, in the following photo of fly geyser, the imagine prompt is "multicolored surreal mini volcanoes erupting water like fountain"

Fly Geyser, Nevada, USA

I typed the prompt into DALL-E-2 and got the following images. The renditions are good, but DALL-E-2 generated images are not comparable to the real thing, not even close, more like a child's play. 

So the generative AI tool DALL-E-2, is not imaginative or creative as many believed, at least for many beautiful photos featured in this campaign. 

Let us look at what generative AI can do well, for example, writing or improving essays. In my recent blog posts, I utilized chatGPT to refine my drafts. I found that the improvements generated by chatGPT exhibit a graceful and sophisticated style, often impressing readers more than my original write-ups. However, in my opinion, there is a notable drawback: the improved essays frequently lack authenticity and sound somewhat artificial, using sophisticated words, expressing exaggerated feelings etc. As the initial novelty wears off, the essays improved by chatGPT lose their freshness and originality, leaving them sounding stale. (*)

When true human connection is needed, natural human intelligence beats Artificial intelligence.

What does this mean ?

While we should not stop using our own natural intelligence to create innovatively, to explore broadly, to think critically, we should take advantages what AI, as a tool, can help us with, to improve efficiency, to solve problems with existing solutions, and yes to generate images for illustrations, and decorations.


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* I still use chatGPT or Bard to improve my writing for word selection, for styling, but I write the full essay first to capture my thoughts fully, and only edit my original using AI generated text as reference.

** my chat with chatGPT

Appendix - another human vs DALL-E-2

DALL-E-2

Kayak to Sungai Puaka

We kayaked to Sungai Puaka on Sunday morning.

Sugai Puaka is a river on Pulau Ubin, with its mouth facing Ketam Island. It is very close to Sungai Jelutong, where we kayaked on November 21, 2021, our first kayaking trip to Pulau Ubin. This is our 3rd adventure into rivers on Pulau Ubin. The second river we kayaked on was Sungai Mamam.

Instead of kayak straight to Sungai Puaka across the Johor Strait, we paddled along Pasir Ris Beach on the main island side for over 2km. It was cloudy with light northern breeze, we paddled at a leisure pace, enjoying the view of the beach from the water, floating flowers in the strait, small white birds (Gull-billed Tern) diving for tiny fishes and a glimpse of Coney island and Saragoon East Dam.

We turned northeast when there is an opening of the sea barrier formed by chained blue marker buoys and paddled straight to Ketam Island. Due to rising tide at the time (high tide was 11:09am), ~ 10:10am, we actually paddled through the island via a submersed low land (4km marker in the paddling trail map).

paddle trail map

red flowers blown from Pulau Ubin

Sarangoon East Dam (the white structure) and Coney Island to its right

High tide formed pathway through Ketam Island

Zoom-In of the paddling trail map at Sungai Puaka

Sungai Puaka has two branches separated by a dyke with trees on it. As we paddled into the left hand side of Sungai Puaka, the clouds started to break up, the Sun shone through. Since the tide was near its maximum, there was not much flow, except the ripples from the wind. Birds were chirping and flying - we spotted common kingfisher, pied kingfisher (with black and white plumage) and collared kingfisher which we heard frequently as well. We also spotted pacific swallows, and white bellied seal eagle. It might be worth noting that we saw a white bellied sea eagle carrying a small bird was chased by a screaming black bird right before we launch our kayak Emma into Johor Strait.

Hugging the east side of the river, we tried to get as much shade as possible. Once we did, we stopped paddling, and let the inertia carrying us forward,  and immersed ourselves in the nature - the sound, the sight, and the light. We paddled all the way to the end of the branch of the river - taking the advantage of high tide, we paddled into mangroves a little. The end of the river is next to a biking trail on Pulau Ubin, which we biked a few times before. 

Sungai Puaka 

a white bellied sea eagle over the mouth of Sungai Puaka

A pacific swallow resting at a tree branch at the mouth of Sungai Puaka 

We turned around and paddled into the next branch of the river. In addition to see or hear birds, we met a group of kayakers from the outfitter KayakAsia, we noticed Mangrove Propagules - which look like long beans. We turned around when reached the bridge over the river since there was people fishing from it. In hindsight, we missed an opportunity to paddle across Pulau Ubin through Sungai Puaka and Sungai Batu Kekek - since these two rivers could connect at high tide! 

We paddled more than 10km in 3 hour 40 minutes. 

Another nice kayak outing.

mangrove propagule

a kayaking group from KayakAsia

The pine tree in the photo is actually a cell tower

A bridge over the river, with people fishing from it

The river was more like a lake here 

red and yellow flowers in one tree