©The
Straits Times, Singapore (Used by permission)
by Jeremy Au Yong
• Pulau Pisang FAQ
• Why we still need lighthouses
Insight journeys to a Singapore lighthouse on a
Malaysian island and finds that life there is mostly 'quiet'
ABOUT 20 minutes up the hill – as the legs start to feel wobbly – the steep dirt
track takes an unexpected right turn.
What this does is give the tough 800m trek up the hill a surprise ending.
Just past the turn, the dense forest gives way to a clearing at the top of the
hill.
On it sits the18m–tall white tower that is Pulau Pisang Lighthouse.
The lighthouse is one of five managed by the Maritime and Port Authority of
Singapore (MPA).
What makes it unusual is that unlike the others, it stands on an island that
belongs to Malaysia, about 15km from the West Malaysian coastal town of Pontian.
The arrangement is a result of an indenture signed in 1900 between the Johor
Sultanate and the British government, which was given the right to build and
operate a lighthouse on the island.
That right passed to Singapore under international law when Singapore became
independent.
With lighthouses now in the public eye – sparked by a government exhibition in
Vivocity this weekend on Singapore's maritime history – Insight visited Pulau
Pisang this week to get a sense of life on the island.
Standing on its tranquil shores, one can hardly tell that this is an island that
has caused political ripples in Malaysia for years.
Getting to Pulau Pisang is no easy task. Though there has been occasional talk
of turning the island into a tourist destination, it remains much as it was when
the lighthouse was built in 1886.
No commercial ferry operators take visitors to the island.
Lighthouse keepers are ferried there on an MPA boat directly from Singapore,
stopping at the fishing town of Kukup in Malaysia to go through immigration.
However, the Insight team went via Pontian, which is just north of Kukup. We
paid a fisherman RM$500 (S$210) for the ride in his small fishing boat.
Pulau Pisang can be seen from the shores of Pontian, and is a bumpy 30–minute
trip away aboard a motorised boat.
Around the jetty are four small kampung houses, left abandoned for most of the
year. Each is no bigger than a three–room HDB flat.
Farmer Amin Khalid, 72, who accompanied us, owns one of them.
He says they have been there since the 1960s, when his family and some others
arrived and began to plant fruit trees, such as durian.
They return to the island every now and then to pick the fruit.
'For some reason, fruit here, unlike on the mainland, isn't attacked by
insects,' he says, offering us some freshly plucked coconuts to quench our
thirst.
He proved his point: They tasted refreshingly sweet.
Just behind Mr Amin's house is the mud track that leads up the hill to the
lighthouse.
The hike can take up to 40 minutes, longer if it's been raining and the mud
becomes treacherously slippery.
Add that to the three–hour boat ride they take, and you have the commute the
keepers take to work.
If you also consider that the duo on duty are often the only people on the
island one–fifth the size of Singapore, you begin to get an idea of just how
detached life is from the hustle and bustle of Singapore.
The lighthouse keepers stay on the island for 10 days at a time and bring
bottled water and food rations with them.
Beyond such basic supplies, the lighthouse is self–sufficient.
A bank of solar cells the size of a badminton court provides all the power it
needs, whether for the navigational light or the radio that can be heard tuned
to Singapore stations.
Rainwater is collected for washing and bathing.
In the past, when a stint at the lighthouse was a month long instead of 10 days,
keepers would plant their own vegetables.
And although the house is over 100 years old, it is in immaculate condition. The
white walls look freshly painted and the grass clippings on the lawn show that
it has just been cut.
The lighthouse keepers are charged with nearly every aspect of the lighthouse
and it's clear they take a lot of pride in their work caring for it.
Perhaps the only thing they don't do these days is turn the light on and off. A
photo sensor automatically turns on the light on when the sky gets dark.
Improvements in technology over the years have reduced the number of keepers
needed from seven to two.
In the past, the crew had to take four–hour shifts throughout the night,
operating the pulley system that rotates the light.
Today, keepers say their real excitement comes when something unforeseen
happens.
Mr Gaharudin Abdul Ghani, 54, is part of a team of eight keepers who take turns
to man Singapore's different lighthouses. Insight met him on a visit to Raffles
Lighthouse earlier this week.
He recalls a lightning strike several years ago that cut off power to the Pulau
Pisang Lighthouse.
'For about one day, we were completely cut off from the world,' he says,
explaining that radio contact with Singapore was lost. 'They realised we didn't
report in and sent a boat out to us.'
These days, keepers use mobile phones to report twice a day.
On weekends, when nobody is manning the phones back at home, they send phone
messages instead of calling.
On a separate occasion at Raffles Lighthouse, he noticed a swarm of large bees
at one of the trees near the house.
'We quickly locked up everything and called pest control. It was very scary,' he
said.
To this day, he keeps a newspaper cutting that lists tips on what do if bees are
around.
The only other problem with working in such isolated surroundings, he says, is
the time they have to spend away from their families.
The keepers call their families in Singapore every day and, although Mr
Gaharudin says he still occasionally misses his wife and 12–year–old son, he is
quite used to the quiet life.
'Quiet' is a word that features prominently in a lighthouse keeper's vocabulary.
The two weather–beaten souls Insight met at Raffles Lighthouse were certainly
not the talkative sort.
In fact, during the two–hour–long visit, the two, Mr Gaharudin and Mr Utra
Venkidaslam, 45, barely spoke to each other.
The silence belies an unspoken bond they have developed after years spent with
only each other for company.
While at work, the two are rarely seen together, each knowing when the other has
an area covered.
At night, the scene is reversed. Although Raffles Lighthouse has two bedrooms,
the two keepers share one, with their single beds placed no more than 20cm
apart.
Said Mr Utra: 'We are like family. We take turns to do the chores, to cook, and
we share everything with each other.'
Pulau Pisang FAQ
THE status of Pulau Pisang and its lighthouse.
• How did Singapore come to operate Pisang Lighthouse?
The lighthouse on Pulau Pisang came into operation on June 30, 1886, following
an agreement in February 1885 between the Sultan of Johor and the Straits
Settlements government.
This 1885 agreement was subsequently formalised by an indenture dated Oct 6,
1900, signed by Sultan Sir Ibrahim on behalf of the Johor state government and
Sir James Alexander Swettenham on behalf of the British.
After Singapore's independence, the Singapore Government succeeded to the rights
of the British Crown and the Straits Settlements government under the 1900
Indenture.
Today, the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore maintains the
lighthouse on behalf of the Singapore Government.
• What rights are there under the 1900 Indenture?
The indenture granted to the Straits Settlements government a plot of land
around the lighthouse, the road leading from the lighthouse to the pier, the
pier and landing causeway, as well as a landing place adjoining the beach.
The total land area granted was about 1ha, or less than 1 per cent of the area
of the island. These lands were granted to the British Crown in perpetuity, for
as long as the Straits Settlements government continued to operate and maintain
the lighthouse.
The indenture also gave the Straits Settlements government the right to trim or
cut down trees outside the land granted and within a 300ft radius from the
lighthouse, in order to prevent obstruction to the light.
All these rights passed to Singapore when it became independent.
• Does Singapore claim sovereignty over Pulau Pisang?
No. This has been made clear several times in Parliament.
In 2003, for example, Singapore's then–minister for foreign affairs, Professor
S. Jayakumar, told the House: 'Let me first say upfront that Pulau Pisang
belongs to Malaysia. We have never disputed Malaysia's sovereignty over Pulau
Pisang.'
He went on to add: 'But our MPA, however, has a right to operate the lighthouse
there on Pulau Pisang... The plot of land on which the lighthouse stands, as
well as the roadway leading to the lighthouse, was granted in perpetuity to
Singapore so long as Singapore operates the lighthouse.'
• What ripples has Pulau Pisang caused between Singapore and Malaysia?
In 1998, in the midst of other bilateral tensions, some Malaysian politicians
called on their government to take over the maintenance of the Pulau Pisang
lighthouse.
Malaysia's then–foreign minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that Singapore would
continue to be given free access and Kuala Lumpur would not act 'unless the
situation warranted it'.
In 2002, there were more calls urging the Malaysian government to alter the
agreement on the use of the island.
Since August 2002, lighthouse keepers from Singapore have needed to get their
passports stamped at Kukup before heading to Pulau Pisang.
Previously, they could head directly to the island.
This year, following the May 23 decision by the International Court of Justice
awarding Pedra Branca to Singapore, there were again calls for the Malaysian
government to take back the management of the lighthouse, and to develop Pulau
Pisang to 'ensure Malaysian sovereignty would not be lost'.
The Johor Menteri Besar, Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman, noted that several measures
had already been taken to consolidate the state's rights over the island,
including requiring the personnel managing the lighthouse to register with the
Kukup marine department.
Why we still need lighthouses
By Jeremy Au Yong
ONE OF the questions Mr Parry Oei gets asked most often is:
Why do we still need lighthouses when there is satellite navigation?
For the 51–year–old chief hydrographer with the Maritime and Port Authority of
Singapore, the answer to that question can be seen from his 20th–storey office
in Alexandra Road.
From his office, decorated with pictures and models of lighthouses and other
maritime beacons, he gets an expansive view of the busy Singapore Strait.
Some 130,000 vessels of all types use Singapore's port every year, and Mr Oei
says that each one still relies on simple lighthouses to help work out where
they are.
He explains: 'The reason we have electronic charting is so the ship navigator is
not burdened with having so much of his time doing chart work, trying to
determine his position.
'His time can now be spent looking around and you have these visuals that
confirm exactly where he is. Lighthouses are complementary.'
The lighthouses, he says, were built as part of a network to guide ships from
one light to the next. They don't just mark hazards like sandbars, but also
serve as landmarks and tell ships when they should make a turn.
Horsburgh Lighthouse on Pedra Branca marks the eastern entrance to the Singapore
Strait while Pisang Lighthouse marks the western end. In between, Raffles
Lighthouse marks the spot when ships leaving the Singapore Strait should turn
right into the Strait of Malacca.
Lighthouses are also vital in the event that a ship's electronic navigation
malfunctions.
'You know how electronics are. Electronics can fail,' he says.
But he adds that a lighthouse's significance does not end at being a giant
maritime lamp post.
Mr Oei says each one of the lighthouses in his care has a story to tell and,
more importantly, together, they had a role in helping Singapore develop as a
maritime nation.
It is this history that he hopes to share with ordinary Singaporeans through a
public exhibition at VivoCity which runs until tomorrow.
'We did one exhibition in–house three years ago and our chief executive Tay Lim
Heng suggested that we engage the public and tell them about our history,' he
says.
Models of the lighthouses, historical nautical charts and a life–size buoy are
on display at the exhibition. Some of the items are from a makeshift showcase at
Raffles Lighthouse.
The exhibits tell a story of Singapore's rich maritime history and give a sense
of how it became the bustling port it is today.
In the years before the straits of Malacca and Singapore were properly marked,
ships tended to bypass the island. They would instead head through the Sunda
Strait that runs between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java as a means
of getting from Asia to Europe.
Early maps mark the seas from south of Singapore but nothing to the north. The
Malacca and Singapore straits were literally uncharted territory and that put
off most ships.
'If you cannot guarantee ships safe passage, they are not going to come. No
prudent mariner will sail through a place that is not properly charted,' says Mr
Oei.
Then in the middle of the 19th century, two important things happened that would
prove to be a turning point for Singapore.
First, the British government charted the Malacca Strait and built lighthouses
marking the hazards along the way.
Second, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt to allow ships sailing from Europe to
Asia a shortcut through Africa.
All of a sudden, the island that used to be bypassed now lay in the middle of
the new shortest route between East and West.
'Before that, they just sailed through the Sunda Strait and then straight on to
go past Africa around the Cape of Good Hope. There was no need to sail north,'
he explains.
Though his office is filled with lighthouse paraphernalia – pictures of
lighthouses dot the walls, and little model lighthouses occupy a shelf – Mr Oei
says he isn't a lighthouse enthusiast and doesn't go out of his way to collect
items on lighthouses.
But he does understand why there has always been a certain romantic interest in
lighthouses. 'Many lighthouses have a sad story attached. The fact that one is
built means that ships must have been wrecked on the spot,' he says.
Horsburgh Lighthouse, for example, was built after no fewer than 16 ships were
wrecked on the rocks of Pedra Branca.
It is this history and its continuing role in navigation that make Mr Oei
confident that lighthouses and its keepers will be around for a while yet, even
with improvements in technology.
'You can reduce the number of manpower, but you cannot remove it completely.
It's not just pushing buttons. There is a need for human decision–making. There
is no foolproof system,' he says.