Expedition: Pendas & Sg. Pulai

We recently went on an expedition on the 26th of January, to Sg. Pendas and the ramsar site at Sg. Pulai. The boatman, who's name escapes me, was experienced with taking us to unknown places for excellent shots. We started off at 5:45am and got back home around 2am. A long day, but well worth it. We got to the Nusajaya office in less than 2.5h, and started the boat around 10:30am. We were on the boat until approx 5:30pm. Shahril and Ariff went to get the rental car, and we had dinner around 7:30pm.

Not so much wildlife this time round. The weather was cool, with intermittent rain. The speedboat was fast, so I was glad I had my poncho on. While in the area, we saw a few mudskippers, and this monitor lizard trying to catch some sun. We also saw a few birds.

Ariff at one point got out of the boat in bare feet into the mangrove to take some shots!


Crew on board: Shahril, Dang, Raziff, Ariff, Man, and myself. (Clockwise from left)
We finished off with an awesome dinner on the jetty, with Assam Pedas (catfish - eek), prawn, chilli crab, siakap three tastes, kangkong belacan, salt fish kailan, and hot hot rice!

Ramsar site visit in South Johor

On December 10, 2006 we went to the Sg. Pulai ramsar site. Launching off from Pendas in a seafaring boat, we travelled approximately two hours towards the opening of Sg. Pulai, upriver, and into one of the tributaries. I've never been to a mangrove forest before, and I was struck by the size of this large stretch. However, in context to the original ecology of the Malaysian coastline, this reserve represents only a small portion of what the mangrove forests used to be. Imagine the Malaysian coastline, years ago, completely covered in mangrove forest. Imagine how difficult it was for explorers to come in! And now what's left is this tiny piece! And furthermore, this tiny piece of reserve is constantly being encroached upon by the likes of illegal logging, and shipping traffic.

The ramsar site is unlike any forest I've been to in Malaysia. Upon entering the forest, you notice that it becomes deathly quiet. Even the insects and birds don't appear to make noise. The water is glass smooth. We only hear the sound of our seafaring boat.

We took some excellent shots that day, though I think that by being on our boat, we were too high up from the water to appreciate the roots of the mangrove forest, and secondly, the boat was too noisy for the environment. Lighting during the middle of the day was a bit harsh. For future trips, we thought of some improvements:

1. Go earlier in the day, or later in the evening to catch light.
2. Take a boat that is closer to the water
3. Bring a rainjacket (weather turns so quickly)

Capturing the tranquility of a mangrove forest was one of the greatest difficulties of our trip. Also, capturing the uniqueness of the mangrove was difficult as we were confronted with such a giant swath of trees. It was difficult to capture the differences between the mangrove and jungle in Malaysia.