Pulau Ubin : 20th March

Today was a special day:) We would be going to Pulau Ubin for further exposure. Otterman wants us to know about places other than the two sites we have chosen for our report to be based on. I was really excited as I would be able to see the idyllic rural island for the first time! On the other hand, Borg 1 was not as excited because she had been there before.

We reached the jetty really early but we could not find Otterman. We then took the ferry to the island by ourselves. It was more like a bumper boat and much less advanced than the ones the Borg usually use. Ours can go on land and on sea. After reaching, we sat at the coffeeshop to await the Otterman’s arrival. The weather was not in our favour but the dark clouds did nothing to dampen our spirits.

Through the phone, Otterman told us to rent our own bikes. At those words, Borg 1 and I squealed in delight. It was so exciting to be able to conduct a fieldtrip on 2 wheels! Besides renting a bike, we cloaked ourselves with a poncho but it restricted our movement by a fair bit.

Soon, Otterman arrived and with his bike and we took off to look for his students who were also on the island. The ride was really cooling, with the air racing through our hair. Otterman rode really fast! We found it really difficult to catch up with him. But we had a great time exercising. Along the way, we took many photos and identified some flowering in familiar plants.

We managed to find Otterman’s students after a while and they were on a bird-sighting trip. We learnt a fair bit about birds but their names escape me. We managed to catch sight of a couple of big blue birds and some small yellow birds. I was labelled blind by Borg 1 because I was not able to spot the tiny bird amongst the branches. At first, it really was camouflaged amongst the branches and it was so small. After 15 minutes of staring and squinting, I finally caught sight of it. Phew. I really thought I was going blind!

We then cycled to the west side of the island as there was a mangrove located there. Along the way, we found our biking skills improve immensely as we made sharp turns and rode through narrow pathways. We soon arrived at our site and Otterman put us on task to identify the species of mangrove plants found there. We managed to find around 13-15 and we even saw the Ceriops zippeliana, not commonly found in mainland Singapore. It was also our first time seeing the Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea. Its flowers were so pretty:) We also learnt to differentiate the Rhizophora mucronata and Rhizophora apiculata. The Rhizophora mucronata had much bigger and broader leaves than the latter and its flowers were different. The fruits and propagules made us get both of them confused as they looked similar.

After recording data and getting sufficient photos, it was time to go. We had a really new experience today and I really hope to come back again some day! Otterman cycled us back to the jetty and we headed off.

By Borg 2 of 2. Data transfer complete.