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 .